


Fathoms Below

by withcameraandpen



Category: BioShock, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-01 09:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 28,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14517183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withcameraandpen/pseuds/withcameraandpen
Summary: In the most niche crossover ever, Jack Kelly and Katherine Pulitzer met and fell in love in the underwater city of Rapture, a haven for free-thinkers and a refuge for the disenfranchised. But Rapture's Civil War wouldn't give them their happy ending. So eight months after Jack ferried her to the surface to live a quiet, peaceful life, Katherine returns to Rapture to save her happy ending and get him back to the surface.





	1. Welcome Back to Rapture

**The Mid-Atlantic, October 1959**  
Out in the waters of the Atlantic is a lighthouse built from metal, stone, and the American dream. Katherine Pulitzer stood on the granite steps that led to a pair of massive metal doors, fighting off the chilly ocean spray. Her boat had turned around and chugged away, leaving her at the mercy of the ocean and what lay beneath it.  


She shivered as she climbed the stairs, but it wasn’t from the cold. To think that she had once sought refuge here from the rest of the world! This lighthouse was a gateway to freedom in the form of Rapture, a city deep under the ocean where no government could reach. It was populated by people like her, who detested, quite simply, being told what to do. Rapture promised freedom from the constraints of invasive governing and religion, and to Katherine, it promised a chance to be more than a junior staff reporter on the entertainment pages. There were no barriers between the citizens of Rapture. In a city like this, nothing would stop her success.  


She reached the landing and pushed open the gilded doors before her. The inside of the lighthouse was just as cold as the outside, but the darkness here managed to seep into her skin and chill her heart. How long since anyone had dared to come here? If the city wasn’t built in secret, the news would have laughed at Rapture’s fate and called it unsurprising, inevitable, and deserved by its selfish citizens; but not all of them were selfish. Not all of them deserved it. And one man in particular, a man who should have made it out with her, had been trapped fathoms below because he was too kind to save only himself.

The lights in the lighthouse flickered on. Above her was a massive gilded bust of a man with shrewd eyes and a lip curled in determination. The face of Andrew Ryan stared through the doors and out to the world he so hated, guarding his haven of sovereignty below. A massive banner hung below him, emblazoned with his creed:

_No Gods. No Kings. Only Man._

Katherine swallowed. She had returned, at long last, to Rapture. 

 

 **Two Years Earlier - High Street, June 1957**  
Only a select few were allowed entry to Cohen’s. The private club was the height of the art world, and it served as both a gallery for Sander Cohen, Rapture’s most  
avant-garde artist, and as his workshop. A blend of art and the work it took to create, it was a celebration of the passion of creation.

Jack knew all this, but the place still made him sick to his stomach.

Maybe he could have been Sander Cohen. Maybe if Rapture was everything it said it was, he could have had pretentious galas to show off his artwork, if he could call this “art.” All of this—the exclusivity, the celebrity, even the damn “Masks of Invitation” that Cohen insisted upon—wasn’t art. It was showboating! All Jack needed was a pencil, paper, and some light to create. If Cohen needed all this ceremony, how could he call himself an artist?

But he wasn’t here as a critic. He was sent here as a charming young man, something Cohen liked, to try and get close to him. Cohen was close to the powerful figures in the city, and the most powerful—Andrew Ryan himself—might walk in the door any minute. 

Jack wove through the crowd of people, all wearing their rabbit-shaped Masks of Invitation to show off the celebrity a diamond necklace never could. Sander Cohen was the only one not wearing a mask, but it would have been easy to figure out who he was, anyway, by the throng of people packed around him. Tonight, everyone wanted a piece of Cohen.

Jack waited for his opening and then slid through the crowd to the star around which they all orbited. Sander Cohen was tall, and his black hair was slicked back, as it was at every event and in every photograph. His eyes were dark and glittering, and his smile was just a little unhinged.

“Pardon me, sir,” Jack called, doing his absolute best to keep Manhattan out of his words. “You got some beautiful art.”

“Beautiful?” Cohen turned to Jack, his eyes raking him up and down. Jack tried not to squirm under his gaze; he had been selected for this because he was the handsomest of the smugglers, but Cohen’s gaze felt like he was appraising him for artistic value instead of physical value, like he was just a new set of paints.

Cohen moved through the crowd towards Jack like a shark swimming toward prey. “Is that all you have to say?” He spoke slowly, the way one runs a hand over satin. “I appreciate beauty, but I prize originality.”

“It’s very original,” he replied. “I ain’t—haven’t ever seen anything like it.”

Cohen’s brow furrowed, detecting the faux pas. “Are you a recent arrival in Rapture?”

Jack laughed as sheepishly as he could. “Ya caught me. I haven’t been down long—and yanno, I been dyin’ to meet Mister Ryan. Ya don’t think he’ll show up tonight, do ya?”

But any hope of getting on Cohen’s good side was lost. The glittering appraisal in his eyes had hardened into suspicion. “He cannot attend. I rarely allow recent arrivals into my exhibitions, sir, if you don’t mind my admitting so. Come with me so we can give your name to the steward, who ought to have been doing a better job.”  
“He’s with me!” Suddenly a hand curled around Jack’s arm and a young woman appeared beside him. In her other hand, he noticed, was a notebook.

Cohen looked as taken aback as Jack felt. “I beg your pardon?”

“Forgive me, Mister Cohen. This is an old friend of mine who recently came here, and I thought I might introduce him to the best Rapture has to offer. Please don’t hold it against your steward—I’m an excellent schmoozer.” The bunny-shaped mask she wore could not contain the brightness of her smile, and good thing, too. It was softening Cohen’s resolve. 

“Perhaps you can be forgiven. The excitement of one’s arrival takes time to wear off, I know.” He nodded at Jack. “Rapture is a place of freedom, but it is a place of decorum, too.”

“Of course, Mister Cohen,” said Jack. “If an’ when I see ya again, I’ll mind my P’s and Q’s.”

Cohen smiled. “How charming.”

“He is, isn’t he?” The young woman’s hand tightened on Jack’s arm. “Why don’t we get some drinks?”

“Yes, eat, drink, and be merry!” Cohen was back to his effervescent self, blooming in the spotlight. “Enjoy yourselves heartily, my dears. You may tell the tender that  
your ambrosia of choice is on the house.”

“Thank you very much, Mister Cohen!” the young woman gushed, elbowing Jack in the side. “I wish Rapture was filled with men like you.”

Jack picked up her line smoothly. “Yeah, really. We could use plenty more.”

“Ah,” said Cohen, wagging a finger, “I think not. There is only room for one Sander Cohen.”

The young woman uttered one more thank-you and then pulled Jack away toward the bar. Jack said, “Hey, thanks—”

“Shh!” She didn’t speak until they arrived at the bar, found a pair of stools, and ordered their “ambrosia,” as Cohen so romantically put it. Only then did the young woman take of her mask and lay it on the bar, revealing bright red hair that was elegantly twisted into a knot on top of her head. Her bright smile had totally disappeared and her brown eyes, glowing with admiration before, had cooled into worry and were glancing over their shoulders. “I don’t think we want to be overheard.”

“Thank you,” Jack said more quietly, taking off his own mask. Her eyes landed on him and widened just a little, and the corners of her mouth pointed upward. He continued, “I guess ya can tell I ain’t exactly the type to hang around here.”

“Just a little.” She bit back a smile and took a sip of her just-arrived brandy. “But it’s my job to observe.” 

“Ya job?” Jack’s whiskey had arrived, but he didn’t touch it.

“Yes, my job. I’m a reporter for the Rapture Tribune.” She held up the notebook. “I’m supposed to be covering this event, but—well, frankly, everyone here is too obnoxious for me to remain unbiased. But it’s a review, so I’m not supposed to remain unbiased, anyway.”

Jack let out a laugh. Her eyes got that shine back, just a little, and Jack was compelled to draw out the rest of their glow. “What’s ya name? I prob’ly gave ya column a read before.”

“Katherine Pulitzer. Pleasure to meet a reader.” She swirled the ice cubes in her glass. “And yours?”

“Jack Kelly. An’ I assure you, Miss Pulitzer, the pleasure’s all mine.” He finally picked up his glass and clinked it against hers. “To savin’ skins.”

“To saving skins.” He felt his eyes on her as he took a drink, calculating him like Cohen did. “How long have you been working for Fontaine?”

He nearly choked. “Keep ya voice down!”

Saying Fontaine’s name loud enough in a place like this, full of Ryan’s supporters, was enough to earn a death sentence. Jack wiped his mouth and stood; if she was going to spill the beans, he needed to be ready for a quick exit. “How’d ya know?”

“Easy, Mister Kelly,” she soothed, holding her hand palm-out to him. “I’m on your side. I’m on Fontaine’s side.”

“I don’t remember seein’ you anywhere ‘round the Fisheries,” he said with a scowl.

“I’m not officially tied to anything, but I support your cause.” She leaned in close. “I’m covering this gala for the entertainment pages, but I wanted to try and get close to Ryan.”

“How’d ya know?” Jack hissed under his breath, wary of the bartender drifting by. “Who I’m—where I work?”

Katherine bit her lip. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re a bit of a fish out of water here. You have a Mask of Invitation, but even among these people, they take connections to get. And, well, I saw you scowling at all the art and anyone who doesn’t feel pressured to pretend around Sander Cohen must be in Fontaine’s corner.”

So she’d deduced the hell out of him but was willing to keep his secret. And she was on Fontaine’s side, too. “With this much brains, what the hell are you doing on the entertainment pages?”

She pursed her lips and stared into her drink. “Fighting for my chance. I thought I was going to get it if Ryan attended tonight, but Cohen said he wasn’t coming.”

“This whole night’s been a wash for both of us.” Jack sat back down, dejected. He could have proven himself tonight by getting in close to Cohen, but he found an ally in this Pulitzer woman. A supporter of his cause who wrote in the papers? Priceless leverage. Not to mention that he couldn’t stop gazing at the sparkle in her eyes and the curl of her smile. Yeah, priceless.

She looked at him with that sparkle in her eyes again, and then downed her brandy and said, “Well, the whole night may not be a wash.”

He grinned. “I was thinkin’ the same thing. I hear there’s dancin’ up on the second floor.” He offered his arm. “Care t’ join me?”

 

 **The Lighthouse, October 1959**  
Katherine stood before a long-abandoned Bathysphere, the compact submarine that ferried people below into Rapture. She had been nervous the first and only other time she made this descent, with only a few bags and a dream to her name, but she had made the leap then.

The promise of her future waited down in Rapture again, and she was going to bring him back.

She only had one bag with her this time. It was loaded up with rations and a map she had drawn from memory. The rest of her possessions included a handkerchief and a thick wool coat and inside the lining of that coat was a precious photograph that few others would see. In its pocket was a revolver.  
She climbed inside the Bathysphere and pulled the lever in the central console. The door sealed shut and descended into the ocean below. And as they descended, the seafloor brightened until she could make out the remains of Rapture, the underwater city for the free-thinking American.

The neon lights that advertised casinos and theaters and clubs still gleamed like the sun, unravaged by Ryan and Fontaine. From the outside, Rapture was unchanged. It was just as easy to get sucked in.

Katherine sat down on the red velvet-cushioned bench and loaded up her gun, gazing out at the city that threatened to take everything from her. “Don’t worry, Jack,” she said, sliding the revolver’s chamber back into place. “I’m coming for you.”


	2. Old Friends

**Rapture Welcome Center, October 1959**  
The Bathysphere clanged to a stop and opened into a dark anteroom. Katherine opened the door and crept out quietly, holding her gun aloft. The Welcome Center was destroyed: chunks of plaster had been carved from the walls and dumped on the floor, and the lights seldom flickered on before wrapping the room in darkness once again. Forgotten suitcases lay open with their contents spread about, as if searched by a scavenger. 

Katherine hitched her own bag higher on her back. She crept outside and down the dark, musty corridor before her until the room opened up into a grand observation deck. One wall and the ceiling were dominated by windows, and the windows had sustained cracks since the last time she had visited, but nothing could kill that view of Rapture. An underwater city bathed in ocean green that shone like a pearl, with skyscrapers that rose in stubborn defiance from the seafloor. All the freedoms, the thrills, and the promise of more to come was just a Metro ride away.

Katherine went toward the brass door set into the wall of windows. It opened as she neared, but she was stopped short by the tinny voice of a young girl from behind her.

_“My daddy’s smarter than Einstein, and stronger than Hercules, and lights a fire with a snap of his finger! Are you as good as my daddy, Mister? Not if you don’t visit the Gatherer’s Garden, you aren’t!”_

She spun around slowly. Above her was a balcony for newcomers’ viewing pleasure, and on that balcony was a dilapidated vending machine flanked by the two metal statues of the same little girl. The pink paint was peeling off and rust was overtaking the machine, but the painted-on words Gatherer’s Garden remained intact. Inside that machine were big, glass jars filled with a crimson red liquid that, surprisingly, hadn’t yet been looted.

Katherine scowled. Even after all this time, Fontaine was still hawking those damn Plasmids.

**Two Years Earlier - Neptune’s Bounty, July 1957**  
Fontaine’s Fisheries had destroyed any appreciation Jack once had for the smell of the ocean. He had fond memories of the smell, carried on a chilly breeze to him and his brother after a day spent at Coney Island. But deep in the ocean, the smell of dead and dying fish mingled with the sweat of the dock workers to create something that stuck to his skin, no matter how much he scrubbed in the shower.

But hauling fish wasn’t his only source of income. Sometimes he was spending nights in cramped submarines, skirting around Andrew Ryan’s embargo on surface trade. Sometimes it was thrilling.

But for the afternoon, Jack was just a dock worker waiting for Mr. Fontaine to hand down his next order. He was hauling the latest batch of fish by the net across the docks to the scaling room when an elbow bumped his and interrupted his work. 

“Check it out,” said Race, a fellow Manhattanite who Jack had befriended as soon as they met in Rapture. Old habits.

Race was pointing at the tall, bald man walking down the docks, snickering and scowling in equal measure—Frank Fontaine in the flesh. His gait was almost procession-like as he admired his fetid empire. Every once in a while, he would stop and bring a worker inside for a few minutes, and then they’d both come out like nothing had happened. The man’s face was always stern, and the conversations didn’t look happy.

“Get back to work,” Jack muttered to Race. “Fontaine ain’t gonna like us dawdlin’.”

They quickly returned to detaching nets of fish from incoming fishing subs and dragging them in to be washed, scaled, packaged, and sent out to the city, but not five minutes later did Jack feel a heavy hand on his shoulder and hear a Bronx dialect in his ear.

“Let’s talk, Kelly.”

“Yessir.” Jack let Fontaine steer him inside, catching a glimpse of Race’s surprised expression out of the corner of his eye. Race must know by now how Jack made his extra cash. If he hadn’t guessed it, Charlie must have accidentally let it slip.

Fontaine guided him all the way inside to his own office, cluttered and reeking as strongly as the rest of the fishery. Only then did he let go of Jack’s shoulder to walk behind his desk, bend down, and pull something from one of the drawers.

“Was somethin’ wrong with a shipment?” Jack asked carefully. “I know the Habana cigars was runnin’ late, but only by a couple hours. Problem with the sub that we got fixed.”

“It ain’t a problem with your shipments, kid.” Jack had known this wouldn’t be an issue with his lateness, but Fontaine’s Bronx-y words relieved him all the same. “I’m talking to you because you’re one of my most reliable men. Consider this a reward for your loyalty.”

Fontaine set down a glass jar full of a bright red liquid that seemed to glow brighter than the dingy office lights. “What is that, sir?”

“It’s lightning in a bottle.” Fontaine chuckled. “Literally. Kid, this is a Plasmid, and it’s gonna be the lifeblood of Rapture.” 

Fontaine sat down and gestured for Jack to do the same, and Jack wouldn’t dare disobey this order. “You know the good doctor Tenenbaum.”

Jack shrugged. “I seen her ’round the docks.” Dr. Tenenbaum’s presence was unusual at first—what was one of Rapture’s brightest scientists doing at a fishery?—but soon it became so regular to see her that people didn’t bother questioning it.

Fontaine smiled at the jar on the desk. “This is her brainchild. She took the venom from sea slugs and turned it into this. Wonder of science, isn’t it?”

Jack swallowed. “Pardon me, sir, but what does a Plasmid do?”

“Weren’t ya listening? Lightning in a bottle. The good doctor promises that soon, we’ll be able to conjure lighting at our fingertips, or fire, or ice, or whatever you can imagine.” Fontaine leaned forward. “She’s going to make us gods.”

Jack’s jaw was slack and his eyes were wide, but his surprise didn’t deter Fontaine. He continued, “She’s got other plans, too, but she’s starting out simple with her first prototype. And now she needs volunteers.”

Jack swallowed. “An’ ya givin’ it to me, sir?”

Fontaine’s face hardened. “No, I ain’t.”

“Wh-what?”

“You’re one of my best, Kelly. I don’t put my smartest men on the front line.” He grabbed the jar again and tucked it away into its drawer. “Once Tenenbaum gets through this round of testing, you’ll be first in line for the refined version.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s an honor.” His brow furrowed. “Why’re ya tellin’ me now? If ya don’t mind my askin’, sir.”

Fontaine regarded him carefully, eyes narrowed and mouth pressed into a thin line. Then he nodded almost imperceptibly and said, “I’m telling you this because I want ya to be ready for a change in Rapture’s leadership. That’s all I’ll say.” 

Jack opened his mouth, but his words died on his tongue when the familiar sound of quiet wheeling drew up to the door. “Mister Fontaine?"

He turned and found his brother Charlie waiting there, looking grim. As Jack had worked his way into Fontaine’s good graces, Jack had earned enough pull to mention that his brother was good with numbers, and that he was too honest to ever try pulling a fast one. Accounting wasn’t exactly Charlie’s cup of tea, but it made good money for a kid in a wheelchair.

Fontaine stood. “What is it?”

“Pardon the interruption, but there’s a woman askin’ fo’ Jack,” said Charlie, nodding to Jack. “The guys think she was snoopin’, but she says ya can vouch for her.”  
Jack’s brow furrowed and he got up to follow Charlie, and he heard Fontaine do the same. Fontaine didn’t take kindly to any unwelcome faces, and he certainly didn’t take kindly to people inviting guests. Just who was this woman, and how much trouble was she about to get him in?

They walked out to the front of the fishery where Albert and Spot were wrestling with a woman too well-dressed to belong in Neptune’s Bounty. This time, her thick red curls descended wildly from her shoulders and bounced around while she fought with the two young men restraining her.

“Get your hands off me! I’m no vagrant, I’m just a visitor!”

Jack gawked. _“Katherine?”_

Their night at Cohen’s last month was incredible, but they’d seen hide nor hair of each other since then. Jack had thought that would be the end of things—girls like her didn’t seek out guys like him—but he’d always hoped just a little that they might run into each other on the Promenade.

But here, of all places?

Katherine’s eyes lit up when she heard Jack’s voice and her face split into a grin. “Hi, baby!”

Albert and Spot stared at Jack. “Ya really do know her?”

“I should hope so,” said Katherine, pulling her arms free, “since we’ve been going steady. I meant to surprise you, Jack, but these Neanderthals had other ideas.”

Jack could feel Fontaine’s scowl as he shouldered past Jack and went up to Katherine. He towered over her but the fiery redhead didn’t back down, staring right back up at him. Fontaine asked, “My men say it looked like you were spying, and I trust my men.”

“Well, it’s very easy to get lost down here, isn’t it?” Katherine huffed, brushing herself off. “And I didn’t want to interrupt your whole workday for the sake of speaking to my beau. I thought I could slip in and find him on my own.”

Jack’s heart was pounding. She was so brazenly opposing Fontaine while knowing exactly what he was capable of! And he knew she knew—she had said herself she supported his cause. Was she a moron?

_That’s exactly what she’s tryna look like!_ he realized, thunderstruck. _If he thinks she’s an idiot, he don’t have any reason to worry ’bout her._

Jack fought down a smile, once again wondering why someone so intelligent was relegated to the entertainment pages.

Fontaine turned to Jack, his lip curling. “Solve your domestics on your own time, Kelly. Walk her out and then get back to work.”

“Yessir.” Jack took her by the arm and guided her away down the steps and into the corridor that led away from Fontaine’s Fisheries. Under his breath he muttered, “We’s headin’ all the way outta Neptune’s Bounty. You can explain yaself there.”

“Fine.” Katherine’s voice was businesslike, but she forced her hand into Jack’s, better selling the illusion that they were a couple.

He rushed her through the whole fishing district, eager to get her out. Katherine had pulled an incredible con, but the preceding stunt was stupid beyond belief, and now she’d dragged him into it, too?

They reached the entrance of the Rapture Metro near Neptune’s Bounty. Jack turned to her, but before he could open his mouth, she launched into a tirade of her own.  
“Thank you! Thank you so much, Mister Kelly, you really came through for me.”

“Yeah, I know!” He glanced around once again, in case anyone was listening. “Ya wanna explain what you was doin’ at the Fisheries?”

“I was doing my job. My editor wanted me to see what I could glean from covering Fontaine. Well.” Her expression soured. “That’s not quite how it happened. He said I wasn’t the right reporter, which translates to my not being a _male_ reporter—"

“Why’d ya drop my name?” he asked, cutting across her. Yeah, yeah, he knew what it was like to be passed over, but he’d feel bad for her later, when he didn’t have to focus on saving their necks. “Ya got me dragged inta ya little charade, too!”

“I’m sorry about that, Mister Kelly. Really.” Her brow wrinkled and she looked at the wet stone beneath their feet. “You mentioned something about the Fisheries at Cohen’s last month and took a shot in the dark.”

“Least it was a good one,” he huffed. “Ya don’t wanna get tangled up in nothin’ ’round here.” Jack had a sinking feeling of what Fontaine would have done if he found out Katherine was here to gather information instead of visiting her beau.

Her mouth pressed into a thin line, but she nodded all the same. “Fine. It’s a deal.”

So that was twice they had pretended to know each other. “This makes us even now, don’t it? You saved my neck at Cohen’s, too.”

She let out a jittery laugh. “This is very different from Cohen’s, I think.”

It was. “I dunno ’bout that. I know I ain’t never goin’ near that place again, either.”

“Frankly, I feel the same.” The Metro arrived and Katherine stepped inside, but before the door closed, she said, “Considering how we came through for each other, I think we should stick together.” 

She stood inside the doorway of the Metro, leaning out with one hand on the door. “Can I see you again?”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, but his sudden suspicion couldn’t disguise his smile. “You ain’t tryin’ to get dirt on Fontaine from me, are ya?”

Her own eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t even think of that. Is that what you think of me, Mister Kelly?”

“O’ course not, Miss Pulitzer.” His suspicion vanished. “I just know you’d do anythin’ for a story, includin’ mixin’ up business an’ pleasure.”

“Maybe, but when I had the idea to take you out to the Silver Fin Restaurant Saturday night, it was entirely for pleasure.” She stepped out of the Metro, hardly batting an eye at the frustration of the other riders. “And I insist you let me take you out. My womanly pride wouldn’t remain intact otherwise.”

He laughed. Katherine’s face lit up beautifully. “Saturday night? I’ll see ya then.”

“Saturday night.” She climbed back into the Metro and then turned around. “Oh, just one condition, Mister Kelly.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m used to it by now, but for the sake of the other patrons, perhaps it is best if you don’t come smelling like a fishery.”

 

**Atlantic Express Depot, October 1959**  
The railway hub was the only logical place to start. Perhaps she could set up camp here, somewhere safe and isolated, and then methodically search every single branch of the railway. The power still ran, it seemed, so transport would be easy. She could do this. Yes, she could do this.

She crept closer to Jack’s door when suddenly she stilled, hearing shuffling footsteps from above and the gentle scrape of metal on stone. The sound got louder and then stopped entirely; and when she looked above her at the balcony, she spotted a shadow skulking from the balcony above, with two bloodshot eyes situated between a pair of gleaming hooks. When she spotted it, it leaped out at her with a harsh cry, hooks outstretched.

Before she could duck for cover, lift her gun, or do anything, a bolt of blue lightning shot out from behind her and hit the shadow dead-on. It hit the ground with a snarl and jittered as electricity coursed through his body—now she could see it was a man, or something that used to be a man. His face was scarred horribly, bruised and bloody, and the hooks, she realized, were not tools. They were drilled right into the stumps of his arms where his hands should have been.

Behind her, she heard, “Is it you, Kath?”

She spun around and immediately broke into a smile. “Charlie!”


	3. Up and Down

**Atlantic Express Depot, October 1959**  
Charlie stood at the gate for the train to Olympus Heights, eyes wide and a hand outstretched. He lowered his hand and hobbled toward her on a crutch, beaming with joy. “Katherine, you’re alive!”

Katherine ran over to him and they embraced. He’d traded in his wheelchair and looked much worse for wear, but he was _alive._ “And you are, too! Hell, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you.”

"Where ya been?" They pulled away, and confusion flitted across Charlie’s face, but it vanished in the space of a breath. “We’s been hidin’ out in Olympus Heights.”

“We?” Others had survived! Jack could still be alive! “Are there others?”

Suddenly the body spasmed on the floor and she whipped out her gun, intent on not missing her opportunity; but then it once again fell quiet and still. “He’s dead,”  
said Charlie, his smile turning into a sour scowl. “He ain’t gonna bug us no more.”

Katherine glanced at the veins in his arm that were still pulsing bright blue. “How in the world do you still get EVE down here?” Charlie’s lighting wasn’t a godly power, but a result of the Electro Bolt Plasmid that had taken Rapture by storm. The problem with Plasmids was that they required fuel to keep using, a chemical cocktail Fontaine called EVE. EVE was a Plasmid’s battery, and Rapture’s addiction.

“We keep it for emergencies.” Charlie adjusted his crutch under his arm, staring down at the creature. “Only for emergencies. We can’t afford losin’ any more men.”  
After a long moment, he sighed and closed his eyes. Katherine didn’t want to look back at the creature, but he called to her morbid curiosity—he had been a man once. He had been human. “What happened to him?”

“ADAM.” Charlie looked back up at her. “We got a name for the folks like these—” he nudged the creature with his toe, “—who take so much ADAM that they ain’t human anymore. We call ’em Splicers.”

**Two Years Earlier - Fort Frolic, September 1957**  
“Pick out whateva ya want, kid!” Jack declared as he and his brother arrived at Fort Frolic, the city’s entertainment hub. “We’s got cash t’ burn!”

They set off in search of the right establishment, eager to empty their pockets. They didn’t often get windfalls like this, and Jack felt common sense tugging at the back of his mind to save it up, but Fontaine had made a fortune on the latest shipment of topside whiskey and Jack had gotten a cut far fatter than he was used to. He and Charlie deserved a night on the town, but Jack had his own agenda. He’d spotted a record player in Katherine’s home out of the corner of his eye, and since then was aching for an excuse to visit Rapture Records. He was flying blind, though. He couldn’t catch a glimpse of her record collection, as she was keeping him occupied with important things, like the zipper of her cocktail dress.

“Sir Prize!” gasped Charlie, pointing Jack at the gambling den. “C’mon, Jackie, just a few games?”

“We both know better than that,” he replied, wheeling him past. “We’s goin’ someplace where we’s gonna get somethin’ back. Ya wanna end up like Race?”

“Old prude.” They set off smiling through Fort Frolic, passing by the bars and casinos in favor of the clothing stores, where they might find their delights a little more permanent. Charlie wheeled toward the sportscoats in the back without batting an eye at all the looks that followed him through the shop, surprised to see some poor thing in a wheelchair. Jack supposed his brother was a sort of medical wonder in Rapture—with the Medical Pavilion so accessible and a new scientific breakthrough every other day, what was Charlie doing with an amputated leg? How dare he not be a perfect human specimen?

Jack scowled. Of all things to follow them from the surface, did those looks at his brother have to be one of them?

They left the clothing shop with bags hanging off the handles of Charlie’s chair and lighter pockets, having both been cajoled into making purchases (Charlie got a sharp jacket, and Jack a nice, new cap). They were further into Fort Frolic, enjoying the rush of impulse buying, when Jack heard a familiar voice call out near Fleet Hall.

“Jack?” He turned and found Katherine peeling away from the crowd that had just emptied out of the theater, her notebook sticking out of the big bag on her elbow. She walked towards them with a big smile on her face. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“What are you doin’ here, sugar?” He kissed her hello, a hand on her arm. “Slackin’ off? Not a good look for the _Tribune’s_ ace reporter.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s my job to see shows in the middle of the day. Hopefully not for much longer, though.” Katherine glanced over at Charlie, and then Jack jumped to attention. This wasn’t the way he wanted it to go, but it would have to do. 

“Charlie, meet Katherine. The girl I been seein’.” Jack went to stand at Katherine’s side and noticed his brother’s face had gone a very deep red. 

“Afternoon, Katherine.”

“Afternoon, Charlie.” Her face was reddening, too, until she blushed as brightly as her hair. She caught Jack’s eye and said, “We’ve actually met before, come to think of it.”

“Briefly,” said Charlie. “Very, _very_ briefly.”

Jack’s brow furrowed, and his heart quickened. He didn’t like the sound of any of this. “When?”

Charlie looked at Katherine with wide, desperate eyes, like a storm-tossed sailor begging for a life raft. Katherine, faced with revealing the secret on her own, turned even redder and began to speak.

“Jack, do you remember when we were in the elevator a few weeks ago?” she asked, her voice all but a whisper. “We were headed up to my place. We, uh, we had gotten a little impatient.”

Yes, he remembered. They had learned they both lived in the Artemis Suites in Apollo Square, the lower-class housing district, and Jack was escorting her up to her room, but the damned elevators were so slow and he and Katherine were teasing each other the whole Metro ride home…

“It opened up before my floor and you managed to hit the button to keep us moving,” she explained, “but I got a look at who was waiting for it.” 

Jack’s eyes widened and slowly he turned to his brother. Charlie awkwardly scratched the back of his head, looking sheepishly up at his brother. “I was headin’ up ta see Race that night. Ya called ahead an’ said ya wouldn’t be able t’ make it.”

Now Jack felt heat rising to his cheeks, too, as the memory caught up with him. He’d heard the elevator ding, but he’d reached across without turning away from Katherine to hit the button to close the doors. “Ya didn’t tell me?” he asked, rounding on Charlie. “Ya didn’t say a word about it after?”

“What was I s’posed to say?” he fired back “ ‘Hey, Jack, looks like ya havin’ fun, can I get in on it?’ ”

Katherine snorted and lifted her hand to her face to hide her laughter while Jack, who absolutely did not find it funny, wished for nothing else than for Fort Frolic’s Atrium to collapse upon itself and drown them. But then Charlie was caught up in giggles, too, and even Jack cracked a smile. Okay, maybe it was a little funny.

“It’s nice to meet you properly, Charlie,” said Katherine when at last they had returned to their normal color. “Jack and I will be more careful in the future.”

“I dunno if you’ll hafta be,” said Charlie, glancing up at his brother. “I ain’t sure he’s ever gonna try anythin’ again.”

“All right, all right,” retorted Jack. “That’s enough outta you.”

Katherine checked her watch. “Sorry, I have to be back at work. We’re still on for tonight, right?”

“Yeah. I’ll pick ya up at seven.” They kissed again and Katherine took her leave. When she disappeared around the corner, Jack turned back around and found Charlie smirking and wheeling away.

“Next time, at least wait until you is in one o’ ya’s beds. Other folks ride those elevators, ya know.”

“Shut up!”

 

**Olympus Heights, October 1959**  
Katherine had set a course for an apartment in Olympus Heights the day she descended into the city. It was where the richest of Rapture lived and where luxury abounded, and where she would surely end up as long as she worked hard and earned her keep. She had had grand visions of residing here during her retirement, enjoying music and wine and the comfort she had earned.

So much for that.

“Home sweet home.” Charlie knocked four times on door 451 and then fished a key out of his pocket. Charlie had filled her in on the plagues of Rapture on the way over to the Kelly-Morris apartment, each grislier than the last. Civil war between Ryan’s forces and Fontaine’s rebels had ravaged the city and forced people to hole up and take cover where they could. Some were cut down in the conflict. Some were still missing. And some had become Splicers, the EVE-addicted citizens driven to insanity by their confinement. A year of deadly rebellion that had led to the warping and transformation of innocent citizens into monsters. And somewhere in this nest of madness was Jack.

“Hey!” called Charlie as they went inside. “We got company!”

“Company?” Katherine’s heart leaped. He could be here! Jack could be here!

“Katherine?” a voice called from around the corner. Hurried footsteps came towards her and suddenly David Jacobs rounded the corner, his eyes wide and his nose clearly recovering from a break. “What took you so long, _bubbula_?"

“David!” They ran towards each other and he enveloped her in a bear hug, his relief radiating through the strength of his arms. 

“We thought you were dead. We looked all over the city for you, but you’re better at hiding than I thought you were.” David pulled away from her and gave her a once-over, as if she might vanish without his constant checking. “But you’re here.” 

The question burst out on its own; if she kept it down any longer, it might consume her. “Where’s Jack? Tell me he’s here. Please tell me he’s here.” 

David’s face fell and he glanced over her shoulder at where Charlie was standing. “You didn’t tell her?” 

“We didn’t get ’round to it.” Charlie came to her side and lay a hand on her shoulder. She looked into his eyes and found only grim reluctance to tell the story. “Ya might wanna sit down.” 

She batted his hand away. “Where is he? Tell me now!” 

Charlie and David exchanged a glance, and then Charlie heaved a sigh. 

“He ain’t here, Katherine. We don’t know where is is. We don’t even know if he’s alive.” 


	4. Where We Were

**Two Years Earlier - Apollo Square, October 1957**  
“You is killin’ me, ace.” Jack was pinned up against the elevator wall, because he and Katherine apparently did not learn from Charlie’s tale. They both were horrifically impatient and had a bad habit of recklessness, and, when combined with the reason for tonight’s celebration—Katherine’s leap from the entertainment pages to hard news—how was he supposed to stand stoic and ignore the sweet, fiery words she whispered into his ear? 

But someone had to, no matter how passionate Katherine’s fire was. “C’mon, I got work t’morrow,” he said, running his hands down her arms. “An’ you do, too.”   
Katherine pulled away with a pout. “You’re going to smell like the ocean tomorrow,” she replied, “and I don’t prefer kissing a whole school of fish.”

“It ain’t that bad.”

“You’re used to it.” 

“You should be by now, too.” The elevator came to a stop. Jack extracted himself from Katherine’s embrace to get out at the seventh floor, but Katherine, like a child being pulled by the leash of an excitable pup, followed him all the way to the threshold of the elevator, clinging to his hand. 

“Wait,” she said. He turned back and found her hovering there, her eyes soft and sincere and her mouth half-open, as if perpetually taking in a breath. And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what had smothered her fire.

He’d never seen her like this before. She was always so sure of herself, always confident, always controlled. When had he ever seen her helpless? No, it wasn’t helplessness—it was vulnerability.

What had happened in the three seconds he’d turned his back?

“Ace?”

The elevator dinged and the doors started to close. Katherine’s daze broke and she let go of his hand, retreating into the elevator. But when the opening was just a sliver, when all he could see was her face, she darted forward again.

As the doors closed, she cried out, “I love you!”

“Katherine!” Jack rushed towards the doors, but the elevator was already on the way up. And away went Katherine, the fiery, quicksilver woman that had captured his heart.

He couldn’t let that be the end of the night. Not in a million years.

He raced for the nearby stairwell and climbed up, taking the steps three at a time. He hadn’t been seventeen for a long, long time, but his childhood on the streets of Manhattan was suddenly coursing through him, powering his limbs until he was all but flying upstairs to the eleventh floor.

He sprinted along the corridor and skidded around the corner, where he spotted Katherine standing before her front door, fumbling for her keys in her pocketbook. He bolted towards her, shouting, “Katherine!”

She jumped. When he skidded to a stop before her, she opened her mouth to speak but he captured her lips in a kiss, desperate and hungry and loving all at once. He reached up to tenderly cradle her face in his hands, her creamy skin soft against his work-roughened hands. A surprised hum emanated from her throat, but then she reached up to grab his shoulders and pulled him closer.

They were breathless when they broke apart. “What’s happening?” she breathed, gazing up at him with the same vulnerability he had seen in the elevator. 

“I love you.” She must know by now, but they both needed to hear the words hit the air. She, above anyone else, knew the power of words. “I love you, Katherine. Ya think I was jus’ gonna say goodnight without lettin’ ya know?”

Her eyes lit up. “I didn’t know how to tell you. Actually, I didn’t know I was going to tell you at all. It just slipped out.”

He smiled. The only reason he hadn’t said it first was because it seemed too good to be true. A guy like him falling in love with a sharp, beautiful woman was par for the course. But a dame like Katherine falling for a dock worker didn’t happen.

But it did, and Jack couldn’t remember ever being happier.

She pulled him close for another kiss, pressing herself against her locked front door. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she murmured with a smile. “I’m not scared to say it anymore.”

“An’ don’t you ever be scared o’ sayin’ it again.” Katherine was the rush of ADAM and the support of a steel beam, the laughter of a night on the town and the comfort of home. She was a perfect storm, and Jack didn’t know any better place to be than her eye.

He pulled away and glanced at the door. Katherine’s eyebrows lifted, and Jack said, “Katherine Pulitzer, there ain’t nothin’, not work, not nothin’, more important than you right now.”

With half-lidded eyes, she fished inside her pocketbook for her keys.

 

**Olympus Heights, September 1959**  
Katherine sat on the couch, the cushions plumper than they had any right to be, and stared blankly at the floor. David sat beside her and Charlie on the arm of the chair, lingering close should she snap or break or dare to move. There was pity in their eyes, but it was a thin kind of pity, a surface-level pity. They were used to violent loss by now.

“Tell me what happened again,” she asked quietly. “Please.” 

David sighed and spun the tale of woe once more. Katherine hoped for all their sake that it would stick this time. 

“Tenenbaum found us six months after war broke out with a brand-new Plasmid—something that could save the Little Sisters.” Little Sisters were, in a word, abominations. They were young girls, some orphans and some given up willingly, who had ADAM-producing sea slugs implanted in the lining of their stomachs. The slugs turned them into something not quite human, with gray skin and blank eyes and, to add insult to injury, the single desire to harvest more ADAM. The slugs thrived and so did the Plasmid industry, but at the cost of those girls’ humanity. Why be human when you could be a factory? 

“Tenenbaum offered us a good deal: we save whatever Little Sisters we come acrosss and she gives us supplies. I don’t know how she does it, but she’s kept her end since we struck the deal.”

Charlie heaved a sigh. “Keepin’ our end’s the hard part. The Big Daddies don’t go down easy.” A Big Daddy was a protector of a Little Sister, a great, hulking monster that followed its Sister wherever she went. Once the maintenance workers of Rapture, Big Daddies were fierce, with a whole arsenal of weapons and one objective: to protect its Little Sister at all costs. “An’ Jack jus’ said yes. He didn’t even look at us when she gave her offer. I still don’t understand it.”

Katherine swallowed and stared into her lap. “And what happened to him?”

Charlie scowled. David continued, “We had just rescued a Little Sister. We were taking her back to Tenenbaum when Splicers found us. I had the girl, and he told me to escape with her and that he’d be right behind me.”

“But you didn’t leave him.” Katherine’s voice was toneless, bare.

“How could I?” A muscle jumped in David’s jaw. “I put the girl somewhere safe and came back, just in time for Jack to get hit with a Hypnotize Plasmid. I called out to him, he attacked me, and then the Splicers ordered him back and marched him off to Apollo Square.”

Katherine closed her eyes and swallowed. “How long does that effect last?” she choked out.

“We don’t know,” said Charlie. “An’ we don’t even know if he survived the trip there.”

Well, there was only one way to find out. She did not come this far to get stymied by something as trivial as danger. “Tomorrow I’m going to Apollo Square."

They both balked at her. “Are ya insane?” Charlie said, climbing to his feet. 

“You don't have to come along.” Katherine looked up at the two men finally, feeling strength in her words again. “I’m going there, with or without you, and I’m going to get Jack out. It’s up to you whether or not you want to stay in this hellhole.”

“Wait a second,” said David as he and Katherine stood. “We can’t just walk in like it’s nothing!”

“You can’t walk anywhere in Rapture like it’s nothing,” she countered. “Why’s Apollo so different?”

“’Cause it’s a fuckin’ internment camp!” exclaimed Charlie. “It’s where Ryan holes up anyone he don’t like!”

“A what?” An internment camp? To think her old home was now a prison for Ryan’s enemies chilled her to the bone. Just how badly had Rapture ruptured her idyllic old life?

David’s brow was furrowed. “It’s been an internment camp since January of this year. How didn’t you know?”

“Wait.” Charlie’s eyes were dark as he looked her over, almost as if he were seeing her for the first time. “You don’t know nothin’ ’bout Rapture. We ain’t even seen you in the city for months, an’ ya best believed we combed this place fo’ anyone we knew. Jus’ where the hell have you been, Kath?”

She hadn’t realized she was dreading what she was about to say, but suddenly she was keenly aware of how much they would hate her. “You won’t like it.”

“Does it matter whether or not we like it?” asked David. “Charlie’s got a good point. Just where were you all this time?”

She heaved a sigh and sank back down into her seat. With a heavy heart, she said, “Jack took me to the surface. Everything you’re telling me about this civil war is news because I haven’t been here to witness it.”

The silence chilled her to the bone. Charlie stared at her as if she’d announced a plan to kill him. “You weren’t even in Rapture? You was topside all this fuckin’ time, an’ ya only come back now?”

“ _Why_ did you come back?” David asked. David was merely stunned by the news; perhaps the wound wasn’t as personal. 

“I came back to find him,” she said desperately. Surely that might edge her into their good graces again.

“Ya came back, what, a year after?” Charlie demanded. “What was ya doin’ since then?”

The truth burned on her tongue, but she kept that locked deeply in her heart. _Not yet._ “I-I couldn’t come back until now. I just couldn’t.”

“What was ya waitin’ around for? Whatever it was, why didn’t ya at least send police down? Ya coulda saved us a lotta nights worryin’ ’bout whether or not we would live t’ see the mornin’!”

“I did what I could!” she pleaded. “I tried to raise the alarm and get people to investigate, but no one took me seriously enough to hire a boat out to investigate the ocean. The entire ocean, Charlie! I’m sorry! I didn’t know how bad it was down here!”

“Ya couldn’t fuckin’ figure it out?” Charlie’s red face was inches from hers now and his hands were balled into fists. “When we wasn’t comin’ up t’ find you, you didn’t think we mighta been in deep shit? I watched my best friends—Race an’ JoJo an’ Smalls, even Smalls—turn into monsters an’ get killed while you was sittin’ pretty topside an’ twiddlin’ ya thumbs?”

Katherine felt hot tears cascade down her cheeks. Her closest friends had endured so much misery, and she had dared to escape to peace. “I’m sorry.”

“Ya should be.” Charlie stormed away down the hall. “I liked ya better when I thought you was dead.”

 

**Two Years Earlier - Apollo Square, October 1957**  
Jack and Katherine lay in each other’s arms, entangled in the sweaty sheets. His hand was in her hair and her head was on his chest, and they held each other close and tight, as if morning would wipe this night out of existence. But how could he ever forget this night? She had been more open with him than he had ever seen, and he had sworn to protect that vulnerable side with everything he had. They were both in rare form tonight.

And when they were done, he had kissed her lips and her eyelids and the bridge of her nose until she fell asleep snuggled against him, finally tucking that bright smile away for another day. He had fallen in love with that smile so quickly—the day he had first seen it, he now knew. He had thought the gentle tug in the pit of his stomach was gratitude for her saving him from Cohen, but everything was clearer in the darkness of her apartment.

“I love you, Katherine.” He craned his neck to kiss the top of her head. “I love ya more than anythin’ else on earth.”


	5. Where We're Going

**Two Years Earlier – Fort Frolic, December 1957**  
Jack couldn’t think of any better way to spend New Year’s than in the Cocktail Lounge with Katherine on his arm, a bundle of friends, and some top-notch liquor imported from the surface to rosy everyone’s cheeks. Most of the boys were dancing with their sweethearts, but Jack, Katherine, and her friend David were relegated to a table just off the dance floor, watching everyone’s round while they made merry.

“I’ll be right back, _bärchen_ ,” said Katherine. “I’m just taking a powder.”

“Don’t take too long,” he replied as she kissed him on the cheek. “I plan on gettin’ my New Year kiss.”

“With or without me?”

He cracked a smile. “Who else would it be?”

She beamed. “You are far too sweet for your own good. Behave while I’m gone.”

“Sure thing, sugar.”

She got up and wove through the Lounge to the restrooms, leaving Jack and David alone. “So,” began Jack, staring into his glass of whiskey, “when didja meet Katherine?”

“At the _Tribune_ ,” he replied shortly. David was like Katherine, clean-cut and articulate, and so very, very different from Jack. He had always known that they ran in different crowds, but rarely was that notion so impressed upon him as it was now.

Jack sat up in his seat and smoothed down a tie that wasn’t there. “Thought ya mighta met on th’ surface an’ come down here. Ya seem close.”

“Well, arguing every week will do that to you.” David rolled his eyes and took a drink—wine, classy and traditional. “She sticks to her guns like no one I’ve ever met. I’d think her a nuisance if I didn’t admire her so much.”

“Hey, now.” Katherine’s stubbornness was one of her best traits. It was what had charmed Jack, and it hadn’t yet left him a complaint. How could anyone find a complaint with his best girl? “I betcha the _Tribune_ wouldn’t be half as good without her writin’ for it.”

“I’m not saying she’s a bad writer, Jack,” David said, in a tone that Jack might have used to soothe Charlie. “She’s excellent. But sometimes her pride gets in the way and keeps her from doing what’s right for the story, and it’s my job to push her back. In fact, I’ve said as much to her face.”

Jack bristled. “Ya have?”

“Yes. David chuckled. “She’s got a thick skin, Jack. There’s not much out there that can hurt her.”

 

**Olympus Heights, September 1959**  
Sleeping on the couch had given Katherine a horrific crick in the neck, but she was lucky even to have that. Charlie and David had each gone to bed and, while there were more bedrooms in the luxury apartment that she could have holed up in, Katherine had chosen not to press her luck and slept on the sofa. She was lucky Charlie didn’t outright tell her to get out.

She should have seen this coming. How dare she waltz into Rapture like nothing was wrong, when her dearest friends have been suffering for the better part of a year? How could she expect them to love her when she flaunted her escape in front of them? And then she dared to return to Rapture, and waste her clean escape! She could have lived peacefully, like Jack had asked her when he took her to the surface. He asked her to live happily and to forget about him.

But she could never, ever forget about him as long as she lived.

She sat up, pushing her coat off her. She had used it as a blanket, fearful of asking for a real one and incurring Charlie’s wrath again. She went in search of the bathroom to clean up; she was welcome for only one night here, and even that one night was granted to her by David’s friendship. She had spent their remaining compassion, and now she had to go.

She returned to the parlor, washed up and groomed, and found David eyeing up her knapsack of supplies. With a hard swallow, she said, “Good morning.”

“Morning.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and nodded towards the couch. “Sleep well on that thing?”

“Can’t complain.” She crossed the room and picked up her knapsack. “I was going to take my leave before Charlie got up.”

“Leave?” His brow furrowed. “Where are you going?”

“To find Jack.” She hitched her knapsack higher on her shoulder. “I meant what I said last night. I don’t care if I have to fight through an army of Big Daddies. I’m going to Apollo Square.”

“Are you crazy?” he gasped. “That place is locked down and overrun with Splicers—you won’t get two feet in the door. It’s a suicide mission!”

“And leaving Jack in there is a death sentence!” She couldn’t back down now. She’d come all the way into Rapture, and she was going to get Jack out if she had to paddle back to the surface by hand. “It’s what I came here to do!”

“I’m not letting you die again!” he bellowed, a vein popping in his forehead. “I thought you were _dead_ all this time, Katherine, or that you had been turned into a Splicer. I’m not going to stand by and watch you march into certain death!”

She was stunned, frozen with shock. “You thought I was dead?” she repeated. “I thought Jack would have told you—"

“Katherine, he didn’t talk about you at _all_.” David sat on the couch. Katherine followed suit. “He shut down whenever someone asked about you. I did only once—the day after the war broke out—but he didn’t say a thing. I assumed you had been killed.”

Something in Katherine’s heart broke. All this time, Jack had kept her survival a secret, even if it could have made David’s heart rest easy, and any ease in this horrendous prison of a city was priceless. What on earth had he kept that secret for?

David blinked quickly. “I just didn’t press him anymore. I thought it was something horrific, like you had died in his arms and he just couldn’t figure out how to move past that.”

“I didn’t ask him to keep it secret.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. “He did that all on his own. I didn’t want you to think I had abandoned you. I never wanted that.”

“Then why didja leave?”

Charlie climbed down the stairs with a deep frown and a slow, reluctant walk. The hard edges of his anger had dulled but his revulsion still quietly simmered. He wanted his friend back, but forgiveness still lay out of reach. “Ya didn’t tell us why ya left.”

“Because Jack got her out.” David stood and turned to Charlie, his shoulders squared. “We know Jack would have gotten us all out if he could. Katherine was just the first person he managed to get to the surface.”

Katherine’s stomach flip-flopped. Perhaps that was true, but she knew better. She knew why Jack would, just for a moment, abandon the rest of his family.

“He said he would come back for you,” she added, standing at David’s side. “He told me he was going to be right back. He wanted to get you out, Charlie, and you, too, David. He wanted to save you both. I was just the closest to his submarine.”

“Which then got destroyed,” said Charlie. “Ryan seized control o’ the Fisheries, an’ I doubt any submarines survived up until now, ’tween him an’ the Splicers.”

So that was why Jack never made it back to her. All those months of waiting, the tears, the fears, the gut-wrenching nights when she almost took Jack’s advice to forget him and move on. He had been trapped below, as she had hoped. Better he was trapped than dead.

“Charlie, I’m going to Apollo Square.” He didn’t react to her words at all. Either he overheard, or he knew her too well. “I brought the Bathysphere back down with me. As long as it’s in Rapture, we can get back out, and I plan on getting back out with Jack.”

He heaved a sigh, readjusted his crutch under his arm and stood straighter, just like a soldier. “Well, ya ain’t goin’ all by ya lonesome. Give us an’ hour t’ put food in our bellies an’ pack up. If we is gettin’ outta Rapture, I don’t wanna leave nothin’ important behind.”

Katherine held back a sigh of relief. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

 

**Two Years Earlier – Fort Frolic, December 1957**  
“Three! Two! One!”

The clock struck twelve and the Cocktail Lounge erupted into celebration for the arrival of 1958. Katherine grasped Jack by the arm, pulled him close, and kissed him hard, passionately, lovingly, as if this was the last time they’d see each other. He whimpered under her assault, wrapping his arms around her, and was struck with a sudden bout of clarity just how much hard passion and fiery joy she had filled his days with, and how those days didn’t need an ending. 

Nor did he want one! This stubborn, whip-smart redhead could undo him with her pretty smile and keep him on his toes for the rest of his life. With her, his days were vibrant and loud and sweet. Suddenly living a day without her was unthinkable; if he had to live a muted life, a drab life, then he may as well die.  
And so Jack realized at midnight on New Year’s Day of 1958 that he was going to spend the rest of his life with Katherine Pulitzer.

Katherine pulled away with a blush. “I didn’t know I was going to come on so strong.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, sugar,” he said, his hand resting on the small of her back, “but that’s the only setting ya got.”

“Oh, shut up.” She looked around amidst the partiers, touching a hand to her cheek to check the redness. “Where did Charlie get off to?”

“He’s—ah.” Jack pointed towards the corner of the room, where Charlie had Eleanor, a sweet waitress he’d met at the Silver Fin, perched on his lap. Jack turned away from his brother, a return for the favor he’d done him and Katherine in the elevator, and glanced at the bar, where David had wandered with the other single partiers and third wheelers. He seemed to be in deep conversation with a pretty blonde, and neither of them were touching their drinks. At least he was getting somewhere tonight.

Katherine moved towards her friend, but Jack stilled her with a gentle tug on her arm. “Wait a second,” he murmured as she drew close again. “Ya jus’ gonna kiss me an’ hang me out t’ dry? You hurt me, Katherine.”

She smirked. “I worry more about David than you.” Her smirk fell away suddenly, and Jack wondered if the revelation stoked by the New Year’s kiss had gone both ways. Or, perhaps, she was having it now. “I can depend on you, Jack. I _do_ depend on you. And I’m not the depending type.” 

“I know ya ain’t,” he said. “That’s why I’m honored.”

She kissed him again, completely throwing herself into his arms. And then the club, their friends, and all of Rapture vanished from around him, and all that was left was Katherine and the fire she’d ignited in his heart.

_I’m yours, sugar, through and through._


	6. Apollo Square's Visitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double upload today because carryindabanner on Tumblr is a BULLY who LOVES THIS AU. Enjoy, nerd.

**Two Years Earlier – Apollo Square, May 1958**  
Jack opened his eyes to the sight of dark blue sheets, the smell of coffee, and the sound of Katherine singing along to a record player.

Saturday mornings with Katherine were rare, which was why Jack intended to enjoy this one to its fullest. And as he lay there, counting his blessings between her dark blue sheets, he recognized the record she was playing. It was one of Grace Holloway’s albums from a few years back, which Jack had bought her a while ago, he realized. When he stayed over, he often woke up to that record.

He rolled out of bed and did his best to groom himself in her bathroom, though he had no razor and he didn’t want to touch her comb. She said before that she appreciated the rough look on him, minus the smell of the fishery, of course. At least he had that going for him. When he walked into the kitchen, she was in that pink silk dressing gown again, her hair wild and her movements slow with lingering tiredness. He drew up behind her and wrapped his arms around her silken waist. “Good mornin’, Ace,” he said, his voice hoarse from both sleep and the events that preceded it.

“Good morning, babe.” He tucked his face into her neck. He felt her take a deep breath in response. “I can feel you smiling, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” He lifted his head and kissed the shell of her ear. “An’ I’m glad.”

He glanced over to the parlor. A single envelope caught his eyes, slid under her door with her name written neatly across it. “Hey, mail’s here.”

“What?” she asked, her voice more aware, but Jack ambled towards the envelope and picked it up. Katherine caught up to him, and suddenly her eyes were alert, suspicious, and locked on the envelope. “Did someone just deliver that?”

“Nah, it was jus’ sittin’ under th’ door.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” She snatched the envelope from him and opened it up. “Haven’t you ever gotten the mail here, Jack?”

He was taken aback, but answered honestly. “Charlie likes t’ do it. He’s the early riser.”

“Well, we have mailboxes in the lobby, if you’ll recall, so why would they drop it here?” She pulled out a letter and unfolded it, her eyes darting across the few lines he could see through the paper. Then she went pale and squared her shoulders, her jaw clenching. “Ryan’s getting bold.”

_“Ryan?”_ He grabbed the letter from her and read Ryan’s neat script:

_I admire the tenacity of a journalist who will stop at nothing for her story, Miss Pulitzer, but journalists must be responsible for the reactions they catalyze. And now you’re digging to find—what? More fodder for you to build lies upon and further slander my name? I’m afraid if you’re not careful, that all you’ll find is a defunct Bathysphere at the bottom of the Atlantic._

 

**Atlantic Expressway, September 1959**  
Katherine, Charlie, and David sat in an Expressway car that, against all hope, was still running. Rapture’s power was intact and the Expressway lines still alive, though few people ever took a ride. When people found a safe place, they hunkered down and stayed there.

_Or we ought to_ , Katherine thought to herself.

She looked over at Charlie, seated on a bench with his crutch leaning against his leg. “What ever happened to your wheelchair?” she asked. Only when Charlie shot her a glare did she realize that things had not yet cooled down between them. They could travel together, but by no means were they friends.

He shifted the crutch to his other knee. “Wheels slowed me down an’ made me hard t’ move ’round with. Considerin’ I still had one whole leg, I figured I could get walkin’ again.”

“Oh.” Jack wouldn’t have ever left his brother behind to die, she knew, but she also knew that saying so wouldn’t fly well with Charlie. In his eyes, he’d done it once before when it counted most. 

She looked over at David, whose gazed jumped from the windows outside the car to Katherine herself. “What’re you looking at?”

“Nothing.” But he didn’t look away from her, his gaze curious and calculating. “You look different to me. I don’t know what it is.”

Katherine’s heart skipped a beat. “It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other. You look different to me, too.”

“Really?” He walked over and sat down across from them. “What is it, then? How have I changed?”

“Well…” The fact was that he was bonier than she remembered, and his eyes were sunken and cheeks hollow. He was different because he had fought for his survival, and she was different for another reason entirely. 

She smirked at him. “You’re a lot nicer to me now than you were at the _Tribune_.”

His face split into a grin. “Hey!”

“Am I wrong?”

They chitchatted and joked as they rode along, though they had to force their smiles more and more as they neared Apollo Square, an internment camp for Ryan’s dissenters. They may be the very first people who wanted to break into a prison, a prison filled with the angry and the jealous. How many of those dissenters, despite having shared the same side, would be sympathetic to their cause? How many would let them waltz in, pluck a single one of their number out, and walk away?

The Expressway car was totally silent when it slowed to a stop at the Apollo Square station. They picked up their bags and their weapons and slipped off the train, hurrying to the wall of the platform for cover. Katherine looked ahead to scout a route and gasped in horror.

The entrance to Apollo Square had once housed a beautiful, iron fountain, but now a gallows dominated the entrance. An _occupied_ gallows.

“Shush!” hissed Charlie, who was already used to the inhumanity.

They scurried past the gallows into the archway with a plaque above it that read Apollo Suites. The whole square was on lockdown, but they may as well start with where they were most familiar. 

They climbed down a set of stone stairs slick with water from a leak in the ceiling. Suddenly a growl emanated from the foot of the stairs, and the three all stopped short, holding their breath.

A bony, hunched figure crept around the corner, its face scarred and its eyes wild. But it wasn’t an it—it was a he. And it wasn’t just any he.

Katherine and Charlie lurched forward. “Race!”

Racetrack Higgins, one of Fontaine’s dockworkers and Jack’s friend, growled at them from the foot of the stairs. “Race, buddy,” said Charlie, his voice cracking as he hobbled down the stairs, “it’s me, Charlie. I’d always get on ya ass at th’ Fisheries. Don’tcha remember?”

Race growled again and lurched forward, raising his arm. In his hand was a lead pipe that he was aiming squarely for Charlie’s head.

Suddenly a gunshot rang out from beside Katherine, jolting her heart and making her ears ring. Race fell backward and tumbled down the stairs with a deathly yowl, the pipe clattering out of his hands as he made it to the foot of the staircase and then lay still.

Katherine looked at David beside her, stone-faced as he lowered his shotgun. “That wasn’t Race,” he said. “Not anymore.”

 

**Two Years Earlier – Apollo Square, May 1958**  
Jack stared at the letter, his heart pounding out of his chest. “Katherine, what the hell is this?”

“It’s a threat,” she snapped, taking it back from him and folding it up. “If he thinks he can scare me, he’s got another thing coming.”

She walked to her bookcase and tucked the letter into the front cover of _The ABC Murders_. “There. Now if I wind up dead, the evidence of his involvement is safe and sound. You’ll get the letter to the authorities, right, Jack?”

Jack was astounded. How could she brush off that threat, from Andrew Ryan, no less, so easily? How could she make plans to follow her horrific murder like it was just a visit with a friend? And how could she do it standing right in front of him?

“Has he done this before?” he asked, helpless. “Is that why ya ain’t worried?”

“No.” Katherine pulled her dressing gown more tightly around herself and tilted her chin up. “But he’s not going to scare me away from my story.”

“Are ya insane?”

“No, I’m right! I knew there was something off about Dr. Lamb’s internment. This letter proves he has something to hide!”

So she was investigating the imprisonment of Dr. Sofia Lamb. She was a psychologist who Ryan had publicly debated over their starkly opposite ideals and philosophies. When her school of thought gained traction and Rapture’s crowd began to favor her over Ryan, suddenly she was whisked away to Persephone, the psychiatric hospital that few ever returned from. A political dissident conveniently silenced.

Fine. Katherine had a story, but this story needed to stay buried. “Ace, he’s willing to kill to keep it hidden! An’ ya jus’ gonna keep goin’ like that’s nothin’?”

“Yes! How can I stop now, knowing that he’s covering up injustice with threats of violence? This needs to be exposed! Really, Jack, it’s not as though he threatened _you_.”

“It ain’t me I’m worried ’bout!” he yelled. “I ain’t okay with you bein’ so willin’ t’ die fo’ ya stories. They is important, but no more important than you is t’ me, an’ Charlie, and Davey, an’ everyone else who loves ya.” He moved towards her, cradling her face in his rough, callused hands. “I would take a bullet fo’ ya any day—”

“I’m not asking you to.” She pulled his hands off her face, stubborn to the end.

“I know ya ain’t, but I would. I would do it with a smile, but I’d much rather no one come after ya in th’ first place.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he said, “I don’t know what I would do without you, Ace. Maybe it’s selfish, but pardon me fo’ not wantin’ ya t’ run headlong into danger.”

She stared up at him, her eyes wide and wet, and then pulled away. “Dr. Lamb has a family, too, Jack. She has people who love her. It’s because of people like them—people like you—that I won’t stop.”


	7. Her Bärchen

**Apollo Square, September 1959**  
“I thought he’d be here.” 

Katherine and Charlie stood in the remains of her old apartment while David stood guard at the door. Her furniture lay overturned on the ground after the legs were torn off, probably to be repurposed as weapons; her bookcase had been thrown to the floor, with the books scattered all around; and her record player was a broken hunk that lay in a hole in her wall. Ryan’s war and the Splicers had ripped through it like a tornado.

“He weren’t in our old place, either,” Charlie said bitterly. “Tha’ prob’ly means he’s still under th’ effect of the Hypnosis Plasmid. Guess no one gave him a good whack on the head since we saw him last.”

David turned from his post. “He might be somewhere safer, or closer to the Railway.”

Katherine and Charlie both shook their heads. “Haven’t you ever met Jack?” asked Charlie. “He thinks with his heart, not his head. He woulda come t’ one o’ these places, I know it.”

“He would want to stay close to us, however he could.” Katherine bent to pick up a record that had smashed to pieces. She could make out the name _Holloway_ painted on the center of the record. She had spent countless mornings in her apartment with Jack, playing this record while brewing coffee and pretending that she couldn’t see him sketch her on a napkin. Now her apartment lay in ruins and Jack was nowhere to be found.

She should have been here. She should have been here to weather the destruction with him and David and Charlie, but a greater duty had called her away.

She stuck the shard of the record in her coat pocket and stood. “Maybe he had no choice. Let’s keep looking.”

They all made to leave the apartment when suddenly a long, deep groan, like the groan of a whale made of metal, cut through the air. That sound was familiar: a signal of death. David slipped into the apartment, shotgun at the ready. “We should stay here until it’s clear.”

“We’s gonna be fine, long as we don’t bother ’em,” whispered Charlie. “Let’s keep goin’.”

“Are you serious?”

“Let’s go.” Katherine met David’s eyes. “We’ll keep our distance.”

David stared at her for a long moment and then pumped his shotgun. “Fine. But we don’t go anywhere near it or the Little Sister.”

They left crept down the corridor, huddling close together with their weapons drawn. The Big Daddy could be anywhere, but Katherine wasn’t keeping an eye out for it; she was looking for the Little Sister it was protecting. If something messed with her, all that could save them was prayer.

They heard the long, deep groan again, but much closer this time as they neared the stairwell. And then as they began to climb the stairs, they heard a high-pitched, frighteningly human-like voice that said, “I think he’s still alive, Mister Bubbles.”

On the landing of the stairwell was a young girl, no older than six, with gray, dying flesh and a syringe in her hand. Beside her was a massive, hulking creature that might have once been human. The metal helmet of its diving suit totally disguised its face, but the drill installed where its right hand should be was clear as day. They were looking down at the floor, where a man lay on the ground, a very familiar man.

Katherine lurched forward. “Jack!”

The Little Sister turned to Katherine. Charlie and David each grabbed Katherine and pulled her back. And then suddenly three Splicers leaped from the landing above, snarling at the Little Sister.

And Jack opened his eyes.

 

**One Year Earlier – Arcadia, June 1958**  
Arcadia, like the rest of Rapture, was a marvel of Ryan’s genius. For all of their founder’s faults, Jack knew beauty when he saw it, and the forests of Arcadia were beautiful. An underwater _forest!_ Who else but Andrew Ryan would have thought of such a thing? But Rapture needed a reliable source of oxygen, and Ryan wouldn’t tolerate anything less than beautiful for his utopia. Especially at night when the forest was so quiet, one could almost hear the flowers bloom. An empty forest was the birthplace of peace.

He stopped at an apple tree with round, ripe fruit for the picking on low boughs. The forests here were strange creations, thanks to Arcadia’s need to serve multiple purposes. Oxygen factory, city park, and farmland all at once, Arcadia played host to all kinds of trees, effectively turning his forest into a cornucopia. An apple tree here, a dragon fruit tree there. How the gardeners and scientists figured out how to nurture these plants of different climates in the same place, Jack would never know, but Rapture was meant to do the impossible.

Jack had not come here for a midnight stroll. He had stolen away to practice with a brand-new Plasmid, and that low bough laden with apples would make a good first target. It was an easy challenge but a challenge nonetheless, and he hadn’t dared try to use his new power anywhere else for fear Katherine would see.

Katherine was not fond of Plasmids, not one bit. A little prodding got her to admit she was afraid of them, that they seemed more dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes. She could walk right into Fontaine’s den with a smile on her face, but she flinched at these harmless tonics? Even if they _were_ that dangerous, how could she turn her nose up at superhumanity? And with Fontaine planning to roll out even bigger and better Plasmids, now was the time to load up, while his smugglers still had first pick.

_Especially_ after Ryan’s threats to her. Between her distrust of Plasmids and her refusal to bend to Ryan’s will, nothing could persuade her to protect herself like a sensible woman might. 

Jack lifted his arm and reached out to the apple, his hand a good three yards away. He closed his eyes and focused, and slowly a surging power in his arm built up, as powerful as the turbines of Hephaestus. He felt that power extend upward and beyond his hand, up to the tree where it wrapped around the apple. Jack tugged upon it, the apple came flying down into his hand.

He beamed and took a bite. The Telekinesis Plasmid was something else, wasn’t it?

Jack tossed the apple in the air and activated Telekinesis again. The apple hovered in midair, slowly rotating in place like a mobile. If Katherine wouldn’t protect herself, then the duty fell to Jack.

The apple fell back into his hand. _I gotta get more Plasmids._

 

**Apollo Square, September 1959**  
Charlie fired a bolt of lightning at the Splicers and caught one square in the chest. He dropped to the ground and the Big Daddy let out a roar like the rumble of a volcano, steam erupting from the pistons mounted on its back as he pushed the Little Sister into the corner behind him. Jack rolled out of the way of its gigantic diving boots in time and climbed to his feet, standing with the Splicers.

One of the Splicers hissed and pointed at Charlie. “Kill him!”

She, Jack, and the other Splicer turned to face them, but then with another great roar, the Big Daddy swung his drill, knocked one Splicer to the ground, and impaled the other. But the Big Daddy didn’t stop there. He rammed the drill into the wall and pinned the Splicer to it, ensuring he wouldn’t rise again. 

The knocked-down Splicer shot to her feet, but David sent her down again with a buckshot to the back of her head. The Splicers were down, but they were the paltry threats, the easiest to dispatch.

The Big Daddy was enraged and zeroing in on Charlie. 

Jack skittered further upstairs as it came closer, frightened by the loss of his allies. “He’s still hypnotized!” David shouted. “He’s still going to fight us!” 

“Get Charlie out of here!” Heaven only knew what Jack would do if he woke up to find that he had hurt his brother.

“Not a chance!” Charlie thundered. “Just ’cause I is on a crutch don’t mean I is useless!” 

Charlie bolted up the stairs, leaping up and battering the Big Daddy with his crutch. It wavered drunkenly on its feet, not used to such a brazen, close-range attack. It was rattled, and it gave Katherine the opening she needed to get what both she and Charlie ached for. She leaped up the stairs and skirted around the Big Daddy until she reached Jack on the next landing. She clung to him dearly, heart aching at the sight of him. Surely the Splicers hadn’t killed who he was. He was still Jack, somewhere in his heart. “It’s me, _bärchen_.”

His eyes betrayed no recognition. He blinked at her in confusion and then pulled away from her, making for the Little Sister. “Give us the ADAM!"

“Jack, no!” She ran downstairs after him and then came face-to-face with the Big Daddy again. He roared again and swung his massive non-drill arm, knocking Jack and Katherine hard against the opposite wall. Charlie tumbled down with them, shaken off by the force of the blow. 

Her head pounded. Her body ached from the blow. Distantly, as if she were swimming underwater, Katherine heard the sound of gunfire between David’s shouts as he kept the Big Daddy occupied. Off in the corner of the landing was the Little Sister, curled in a ball and weeping. She looked at Jack, whose eyes were again closed. 

“No, no, no!” She crawled over to him and shook him awake. “Come on, Jack, please. If I could survive, you can, too.”

Jack took a great, shuddering breath and then his eyes opened. They opened wide until Katherine realized he wasn’t just awake, but shocked as well. “Ace? What the hell are ya doin’ down here?”

“Jack?” Charlie’s voice was labored and when he lifted his head, his eyes were unfocused. “Did we get ’im back?”

Jack sat up and looked at the corridor. “How long was I out?”

“Guys!” yelled David. They all looked and found him fumbling to reload his shotgun. “A little help, maybe?”

Jack shot to his feet immediately and held his hand out, which started to glow green. The green glow solidified into a gelatinous ball in his palm that he then threw at the Big Daddy. It hit and burst, splashing the Big Daddy with a thorough coating.

The Big Daddy froze. The four of them watched with bated breath as it groaned, turned, and held his hand out to the Little Sister. Sniffling, she took it, and together they departed upstairs. The four said nothing until the footsteps faded into silence. 

Jack sighed and the green in his veins faded away. “The Hypnotize Plasmid sure comes in handy, don’t it?”


	8. June

**Apollo Square, September 1959**  
Katherine, Charlie, David, and Jack stood in the stairwell, breathless and sapped of their strength. The corpses of the Splicers lay beside them, and the Big Daddy had disappeared with his charge. They were all alive. Jack was alive! And in his right mind, too, which had become a luxury afforded to few in this underwater hell. Jack turned to Katherine, reaching out and grasping her hand. It had been a year of doubt and fear since they’d last seen each other. Desperation shone brightly into his eyes as he drew her close. No, not desperation; it was heartache. Heartache and dread that his heart had nothing to ache for after all. “Ace, you didn’t—”

“It’s good ta see ya,” said Charlie, moving towards him with a smile. “Surprised ya didn’t take a knock to the head until now.”

Jack didn’t turn to look at him. Katherine doubted he heard him at all. “You was s’posed t’ stay on the surface.”

“I couldn’t,” she whispered. “I had to bring you back. You, and Charlie, and Davey. I wanted my family to be whole.”

He sucked in a breath. “Tell me about family. Tell me everything.”

“Whatever you gotta say, hold it until we’re safe.” David was stern as he reloaded his gun, his motions fluid now that the face of danger had turned away. “We gotta get outta here first.”

“Please, David,” she begged, finally turning to him. “I need to speak with him alone.” He had to hear it first. He _deserved_ to hear it first.

“Save it for when we’re home.” He snapped the barrel of the shotgun back into place. “You wanna risk another run-in with Splicers?”

“Well, as long as we is bein’ held up, I wanna speak my piece.” Charlie came towards them, the thump of his crutch pronounced against the thinning carpet in the stairwell. “Nothin’ against ya, Katherine, but I’d like t’ know jus’ what makes ya so special that’d he’d turn his back on his brother when I needed him! Shit was hittin’ the fan pretty hard, an’ the person ya save ain’t the brother who’s stuck with ya all ya life. No, it’s the girl ya knew, what, a year? Didja even think o’ me?”

“He was going to come back for you,” she retorted. “When we hit the surface, he promised he was going to be right back!”

“Yeah, an’ then the sub went down.” A muscle was jumping in Jack’s jaw. “Stopped us from gettin’ out. You knew that.”

“Ya didn’t tell us that she got out! Ya didn’t tell us ya saved her at the cost o’ all o’ us! Race coulda survived, an’ so could Albert, an’ JoJo, an’ who knows who else if ya found us!”

“Ya don’t understand,” Jack said, his voice low. “She needed to get out before anyone else, even me.”

“What for?” Charlie hissed. “What made her so important that ya were willin’ ta kill the rest o’ us for her sake?”

Jack turned back to Katherine, his grim defense crumbling and revealing the helplessness it protected. He hadn’t spoken of her at all after her escape, she recalled. Perhaps so he could preserve the illusion that her life was perfect and conflict-free, so his betrayal of his friends could have meant something. If anything had gone wrong, then their sacrifice would be for nothing.

But everything had gone exactly right.

She reached through the tear in the lining of her coat and pulled out the photograph she had stowed away for safekeeping. “May twenty-ninth, 1959. Six pounds, eleven ounces. You can’t see it in the photo, but her hair is bright red.”

She handed the photo to Jack. It showed a beautiful baby girl with bright, curious eyes and a sly Kelly grin. “My mother is watching her topside. Her name is June Jacqueline Pulitzer.”

Silence blanketed the corridor. David opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water; Charlie was desperately trying to stay angry, but his face had softened right up; and Jack had gone stone still as he lay eyes on the image of his daughter. “She’s beautiful, ace.”

“She is.” Katherine turned to David and Charlie. “Jack deserved to hear it first. That’s why I didn’t tell you. Please, forgive me.”

Charlie hobbled to Jack’s side to look at the photograph. “So this was it,” he said flatly. “This was why ya took her first.”

“Can’t blame him, can you?” David drew up to their side. “She’s got your smile, Jack.”

“Yeah, she do.” He cleared his throat. “But that sparkle in her eyes—that’s all you, Katherine, you know it is. An’ she’s with ya ma?”

She nodded, and Jack said, “Good. I figured I should meet ya ma sooner or later.”

Her heart fluttered. “Then you mean—”

“Yeah.” Jack wiped his eyes and looked around at them all. “I dunno ’bout you, but I is sick o’ not seein’ sunlight. An’ now that we’s got a Bathysphere ripe for the takin’, I suggest we all head over and hitch our ride out.”

He reached out for Katherine again and she automatically joined hands with him, his every touch flooding her with relief. “I can get ya out once,” he said. “I can get us all out again. I ain’t gonna die down here without ever holdin’ my baby girl.”

_“Is that your plan?”_

They all jumped when a voice burst from the public-address system that spread all throughout the Square. The voice’s slick, slow beat was unhindered by the tinny technology—this voice had power that the PA system couldn’t properly contain. _“A fine plan, wouldn’t you say, Miss Pulitzer?”_

“Ryan!” Andrew Ryan was still alive? Of course he was alive—and hell-bent on eliminating Katherine from the picture. “Of course a bottom-feeder like you survived down here. You thrive in filth.”

“Kath!” Charlie hissed, elbowing her sharply. “Don’t piss him off!”

_“An admirable sentiment, young man, but I’m afraid my mind is already made up.”_ He spoke slowly and deliberately, drawing out their fear. _“You see, I didn’t bother with a genetic lock until now because I doubted anyone was mad enough to try and return to Rapture. But now that the Bathysphere is firmly re-settled in my city—well, what kind of protector would I be if I let any of Fontaine’s men out to the surface?”_

“Ya ain’t no protector!” shouted Jack. “Why’re ya pretendin’ any longer? Ya owe me that much, Ryan!”

_“You once did me a fantastic favor, Mister Kelly, but can one favor repay years of service to that parasite Fontaine? It cannot, nor can it buy Miss Pulitzer immunity for the poisonous lies she spread in her column.”_

“No!” Katherine yelped with mounting dread. June was up on the surface waiting for Mama to bring Papa to her. “You can’t do this!”

_“I can, and I will.”_ Ryan’s smile was audible in his voice. _“The Bathysphere is now equipped with a genetic lock. Only people with my DNA will ever be able to use it. Say goodbye to little June, Mister Kelly—then again, you never got a chance to say hello, did you?”_


	9. Convalescing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! Hope you enjoy!

  
**Apollo Square, September 1959**   


A hand latched onto Katherine’s arm. “We’re getting out of here.”

David’s words broke the spell of horror upon them. They booked it to the stairs as one, crashing down and raising hell with the noise they made. Noise was a welcome barrier, however thin, between them and Ryan’s devastating words.

“We shoulda known he had this place under surveillance,” said David as they leaped downstairs. “He keeps his eye on his enemy.”

“How do we know he ain’t been watchin’ us since the beginnin’?” asked Jack. “This is his city. It ain’t like he don’t have the reach.”

“Because if he was,” huffed Katherine, “he would have put the genetic lock on as soon as I arrived.” Ryan would drown himself if it meant bringing others down with him. That window of accessibility to the Bathysphere, however small, was too great of a risk to tolerate. 

They ran hell-for-leather back to the Metro and took off back to Olympus Heights, to privacy, to safety. They collapsed in a pile on the bench of the car, Jack’s hand clinging so hard to his knee that his knuckles turned white.

“Katherine,” Charlie gasped, leaning against his brother. His crutch lay at their feet, thrown to the floor as soon as they made it through the door. “I didn’t know. All that stuff I said was outta line.”

“If you had known, I know you wouldn’t have said it.” And the fact that he hadn’t known was on her. “Jack deserved to hear it first. I’m sorry, Charlie.”

“I am, too.” He took a deep breath and stared down at the floor. “For everything. God, I woulda loved to meet my niece.”

Her heart shattered. June was up above them, in the loving care of Katherine’s mother while she waited for her own to return. Their surefire method of escape was out—would June ever see her mother again? Would she ever meet her father?

Katherine had come too far to give up now.

“We will. There has to be a way. Surely there’s still one submarine left in the city.” She looked onto her other side at Jack. His arm had wrapped around her shoulders as usual and she leaned into his chest as usual. “Jack, tell me there’s still a way out.”

Jack didn’t move. He was staring out the window of the Metro, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Jacky,” said Charlie, “whatcha thinkin’?”

He finally looked back at her, his eyes dark. “I’m thinkin’ that ya shouldn’t o’ come back for us, Katherine.”

 

**One Year Earlier – Apollo Square, September 1958**  
Jack limped to his front door, sporting a busted leg, a bloodied arm, and a bullet in his shoulder. The others weren’t so lucky. Some made it home in pieces, and some didn’t make it home at all.

Ryan, at long last, had sniffed out Fontaine’s smuggling ring and rained hell upon his fisheries in a firefight the smugglers were doomed to lose. Jack had taken the coward’s way out, dodging bullets and ducking around corners in the hope that Ryan wouldn’t scoop him up and hang him for smuggling. Between death or running, he’d choose the option that got him home to his family.

He had a family. He had a girl. And he had to get back to them.

Hand shaking, he fished out his key and slid it into the lock of his door. Behind the door he heard a flurry of movement and excited voices, and before could turn the key, the door was flung open and revealed Katherine standing there, eyes red and dried tears on her cheeks.

“Jack!” She pulled him inside and flung her arms around him. “You're safe!”

“Ace?” He pulled back with a wince as Charlie rolled in from the kitchen, the first aid kit in his lap. “Whatcha doin’ here?”

“We heard the news over the PA,” Katherine explained as she led him to the kitchen and had him sit down. “I ran down here to wait.”

“She was gonna to head over to the Fisheries herself,” said Charlie, wheeling over and opening up the kit for them both to rifle through. “I talked some sense into her.”

“And I talked some sense into _you_ , too,” she replied, inching Jack’s coat off to get a better look at the wound in his shoulder. “Fucking hell, you’ve been shot! We should get you to the medical pavilion.”

“Not a chance, Katherine.” Charlie plucked the tweezers from the kit and held them out to her. “We gotta do it here.”

Katherine balked. “What? Why?”

Charlie's mouth pressed into a thin line. The Kelly boys were well-versed at knowing how to avoid trouble. “’Cause if Jack shows up in th’ hospital right after a firefight at Fontaine’s, folks are gonna get suspicious.”

Katherine shifted her weight from foot to foot, in search of a leg to stand on. “Doesn’t Fontaine have power over them, anyway?”

Jack took a deep gulp of air. “Fontaine’s dead.”

Stunned silence befell the apartment. How could Frank Fontaine, the powerhouse of Rapture’s poor, be cut down? And what would happen to the growing faction of Ryan opposers with him gone?

“Christ,” Charlie whispered, leaning back in his chair. “Killed by Ryan Security?”

“Yeah.” Ryan Security had killed Rapture’s security. More people than Ryan could ever tolerate were connected to Fontaine’s operation in some way. Every single citizen had bought something smuggled in by Fontaine. Every shop and restaurant sold contraband. Rapture ran on smuggling, and Andrew Ryan could tolerate a lot, but not smugglers. They received capital punishment.

“Katherine, get this offa me.” Jack tried to tug off his shirt, but fiery pain shot down his shoulder and stopped his progress. She jumped into action and carefully peeled it off instead, sucking in a breath when she saw his shoulder. “Jus’ do it quick, okay?”

“I’ll do the stitchin’,” Charlie offered, “but it’s better for someone standin’ t’ dig out a bullet.”

He sensed Katherine’s nerves, but she took the tweezers from Charlie with a sure, steady hand. “Get ready, Jack. If you have a belt, bite it now.”

 

**Olympus Heights, September 1959**  
Katherine, Jack, David, and Charlie trudged into their safehouse, exhausted and frightened. Charlie sank onto the couch and propped his amputated leg on the cushion, lying back and closing his eyes.

“I dunno ’bout you,” he said, tugging his cap over his eyes, “but I could use a breather.”

“We can’t take a breather!” Katherine turned to David. “The four of us will be able to figure something out between us. We can still get out!”

But even David lacked the spark in his eyes. Hopelessness pervaded her friends, a hopelessness she couldn’t fix it on her own.

“We need to talk,” a low voice said behind her. She turned and found Jack staring her down, his eyes stone-like and his jaw clenched. He glanced around at the others and added, “Give us a minute.”

“Yeah.” David nodded, frowning apprehensively, and went off to the kitchen. Charlie waved at them from the sofa. And suddenly Jack was storming upstairs to the bedrooms and Katherine was hurrying along in his wake, dread building in her chest. Rarely had Jack ever been this angry with her, and when he had been, it was a painful anger, like a wounded animal lashing out. But this was a cold anger, a calculating anger, an anger he’d had time to sculpt and sharpen into its most devastating form.

They went into the master bedroom. Jack closed the door behind them and turned to her. “Why the hell did you come back?”


	10. Undone

**Olympus Heights, September 1959**  
Jack Kelly stood before her, hands balled into fists and a muscle jumping in his jaw. “I gotcha ta the surface, where you would be _safe_. You was supposed ta forget about ever comin’ back down here!”

“How can you expect me to forget about you while I was carrying your baby?” She folded her arms across her chest. “Even if you managed to forget about me. Was that why you let David and Charlie think I was dead?”

“I did what I had to do! An’ pardon me fo’ thinkin you was gonna do the same.” His eyes blazed and his words cut, tearing her open and burning her heart to a crisp. “I thought you was gonna see sense. At least our girl had one parent ta raise her! An’ now she’s gonna be an orphan, all because Ryan wants revenge!”

“My mother is taking care of her!” she retorted. “She’s no orphan!”

“But she will be, ’cause you an’ I is gonna rot down here.” His voice had become guttural, rough, infuriated. “An’ what’s our daughter gonna think? She’s gonna think I _never_ wanted her. Ya ma might tell her ya stuck around a coupla weeks until ya left. She’s gonna feel abandoned, ace. Ya coulda set the record straight an’ told her how much I already loved her. But now, no mattah what ya ma says, she’s jus’ gonna doubt we ever wanted her in the first place.”

His words hit her with the strength and clarity of a church bell, ringing with truth. It was easy to be optimistic up on the surface, where Rapture’s face remained a mystery. She hadn’t known the city had been ravaged by war, or that Ryan had clamped down upon passage in and out. She hadn’t known that returning would doom her daughter to a life of wondering whether or not her parents loved her.

The finality of their destiny was so apparent and so garish that to ignore it any longer would only hurt them. Katherine would die without hearing June say goodnight to her, or hearing her first word. She would die before seeing her walk, where she would learn how to take the world by storm. She would die before she ever saw the beautiful Pulitzer woman June would become. 

Katherine started to weep. Jack had turned away from her, facing the floor-to-ceiling window of this luxury master bedroom, though his head was bowed and his arm looked as though he was holding something. It must have been June’s picture—what else could distract him from her torment?

He loved June just as dearly as she did. And he had always had the same fire in him, that same hotheaded devotion where he didn’t think as clearly as he should have. It had been tempered by the practicalities of living in a war zone, but somewhere Jack was still the foolhardy artist who rushed into things, carried by passion and steadied by love. Somewhere in him was that need to protect, to care for, to adore, and that need made him a father desperate to see his baby.

And that was when she realized there was still hope.

She dried her tears, quieted her sniffles, and walked towards him. Sure enough, the photograph of June was in his hand and his eyes were misty again. “She likes colorful things. She can’t get enough of anything bright and vibrant. Her room is light blue, like the sky, but I think she took one look and decided she didn’t like it.”

“Night sky woulda been better. Bright colors keep babies from sleepin’.” He swallowed and looked up from the photograph, staring out at the sea beyond. “Dark sky full o’ stars. I coulda painted that, no problem.”

“We never got around to tying the knot,” said Katherine, “which is why she’s a Pulitzer instead of a Kelly. Her middle name is Jacqueline because I didn’t think you would want it to be her first. And June—”

“Because that was the month we met,” he finished brokenly. “We met in June o’ ’57 at one o’ Sander Cohen’s exhibitions. I sneaked in an’ ya covered for me, and then ya took me home that night.” He finally looked at her, tears glistening in his eyes, and she saw his soul unlatch.

“We was s’posed ta settle down in Apollo Square an’ light up the world, you an’ me together. An’ then everyone was sure—”

His voice cracked and he paused; when he spoke again, his voice was high and quivering. “Everyone was sure we’d have a li’l Kelly before long.”

She reached out and he pulled her into his arms. Suddenly it was as if the year had never passed, as if Rapture had never fallen, as if they were still a young couple eager to make their mark on the world. They held each other close and tight, starving for the love they had so dearly missed and yet still preserved and cherished, should they find each other again in this hellscape.

“I _couldn’t_ talk ’bout you,” he whispered into her hair. “It almost killed me ta leave ya on the surface, knowin’ I’d never see my baby. The guys woulda understood, an’ I shoulda told them, but everything was goin’ ta shit an’ I couldn’t afford t’ hurt more, or else it would kill me for real.”

They both fell to their knees, a pile of arms and tears and brokenness beside the window to the vast ocean. Katherine spluttered, “You know, I almost didn’t make it. The pregnancy had been difficult—I wasn’t gaining as much weight as I should be, and I was so exhausted, and my mother was calling doctor after doctor—and the birth nearly killed me. But then I heard her cry, Jack. It was the most beautiful little wail I ever heard. You deserve to hear it, too.”

They clung to each other and wept. They could have had a cozy apartment, a beautiful baby girl, and maybe a set of wedding bands if Rapture never fell. They could have had all that, but then June might never have seen the sun. She would never have known the warmth of a sunny day, or a bracing seaside breeze, or the aunts and uncles and grandmother that adored her.

Their weeping slowly petered out and left them drowning in their own quiet. Katherine looked up at Jack; a hardness had come into his eyes, sparked by love and gilded by the ferocity of his instinct to protect. She had seen that look in his eyes before. She had seen it the second time they met, when he rescued her from Fontaine. She had seen it when he read the threatening letter from Ryan. And one other time, too.

“Ace.” His hands tightened on her. “Ya said that there must be, somewhere in the city, a submarine fo’ us.”

“Yes?”

“We is gonna find it.” Their eyes met. His face was wet, but his eyes were dry and fiery. “We is gonna find a submarine and get back to the surface, ’cause I ain’t dyin’ in this shithole without hearin’ my baby cry.”


	11. Before She Left

**One Year Earlier – Atlantic Express Railway, November 1958**  
As Jack rode home in a Railway car full of fired-up rebels, a ball of dread, heavy as lead, sitting in his stomach.

Atlas had seemed like a worthy successor to Fontaine. He had risen in the wake of Fontaine’s death and brought together Rapture’s poor to create a united working class to be reckoned with. The naïve rich had to pay attention to the angry poor, which Atlas had declared his step one at tonight’s rally. And his step two? 

“Blood an’ bandages!” Atlas had bellowed, his Irish brogue echoing through the caverns of Fontaine’s old smuggling den. “If they ain’t gonna do nothin’ about the sufferin’ an’ sweatin’ we do, then we’ll do somethin’ about it, instead! Join me, ladies an’ gents, in makin’ them pay!”

Jack felt sick to his stomach. This was how he wanted to solve Rapture’s crisis, with bloodshed and terrorism? Race had been at the shootout at Fontaine’s, just like Jack and so many others had; did none of them see sense? Did none of them fear the fallout?

And yet he couldn’t deny the truth in Atlas’ words. Rapture needed a massive overhaul to fix itself, and Jack couldn’t think of a non-violent catalyst that could trigger a reset. Well, maybe a front-page story with every gritty detail of Ryan’s abuses would do the job.

A shiver ran down his spine at the thought, which he quickly buried to never think it again. Katherine couldn’t get involved with Atlas. She didn’t know a goddamn thing about self-preservation—couple that with working for Atlas, Public Enemy #1, and she was as good as dead.

The Railway jolted to a stop at Apollo Square. Jack joined the tide of excited rebels as they poured out from the train, but he peeled away to take the stairs and avoid their thrilled babble in the elevator bay. He didn’t even realize he was headed to Katherine’s place until he found himself on the eleventh floor, far above his apartment on seven. 

The door opened almost immediately after his sullen knock, and Katherine appeared before him, apprehension in her eyes.

“I have bad news. Well, I don’t know if it’s bad _news_ , but it’s certainly unexpected, and being unexpected is what makes news news, I suppose—”

“Slow down, ace.” First Atlas’ call to arms, now this? Rapture was spreading his patience pretty thin. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Come in.” She all but yanked him inside, leading him by the hand to her living room and then letting go so she could pace its length. Her hair looked limp, as if it had been worn out by hands running through it, and her knuckles were red like she’d wrung her hands to kingdom come. And then, with a jolt, Jack realized this was the first time he’d ever seen her scared.

“Jesus, did Ryan do somethin’ to ya?” he asked, all thoughts of Atlas vanishing. “Make another threat? I swear, he ain’t gonna do nothin’ t’ hurt you as long as I got something to say ’bout it.”

“It’s not Ryan,” she snapped. “No, no, no, this is something much scarier than Ryan.”

“Talk to me, Katherine.” He went forward and took hold of her arms, bringing her to a stop. “Tell me what’s goin’ on. I’ll fix it, I promise.”

She swallowed hard, her lip trembling. “I’m pregnant.”

The shock struck him like lightning. His jaw was slack and his heart was pounding. Katherine was _pregnant_. He was a father.

And suddenly joy erupted in him, joy that could burn brighter than the heart of a star. He and Katherine had created something beautiful from their love for each other, something they would teach to walk and talk and take over the world. Their little one was going to be absolutely incredible.

How could Katherine be anything but thrilled?

“Don’t be scared,” he said, a smile lighting up his face. “We’s gonna have a family, ace! God, between you an’ me, the kid ain’t gonna have no choice but to raise hell.”

The tension in her shoulders loosened and a smile began to bloom on her face, too. “You’re happy about this?”

“I couldn’t be happier ’bout anythin’!” His joy began to ebb out and he descended from cloud nine. He couldn’t live in a cotton-candy ideal while practical matters had to be taken care of. “Are you happy, Katherine? If ya don’t want it, we still got options.”

“No, I’m happy. I just didn’t know how you would take it! We never talked about having children, after all, and we’re not even married—we’ve barely talked about getting married, but if we do, I’d rather like it to be around my family, but they’re on the surface and that’s going to take time to work out how to get them down here, or get us up there, and I’m not even sure you want to get married--!”

“Katherine.” He squeezed her hands and she stopped in her tracks. “I knew on New Year’s that I wanted to spend my life with you. Maybe we took a shortcut, but I’ll marry ya, not marry ya, do whatever you want, as long as I’m with you.”

She flung her arms around him and kissed him. “I love you. I never wanted to be a wife until I met you, Jack. That’s the truth. And then this!” She laughed and kissed him again. “You’ve turned me into a family woman. Some would call you a miracle worker.”

“Maybe, as long as you’re the miracle.”

Jack spent the night at Katherine’s. When they lay together in the quiet darkness, her back to his chest and his hand on her stomach, Jack came to the grim realization that in order to be a good father, he would have to kill any hope of a revolution in Rapture. 

He slipped quietly out of bed and went to Katherine’s workspace down the hall. He sat down, found pen and paper, and began to write.

_Mr. Ryan—  
Atlas is planning something big, and you ain’t gonna like it. _

 

**One Year Earlier – High Street, December 1958**  
Another New Year’s in the Cocktail Lounge, another night with Katherine. But so much had changed, and so few knew about it.

“Hey.” Katherine smiled at him from over her seltzer water. “What are you doing, all lost in thought? New Year’s isn’t the time for thinking.”

“Ya right. C’mon, let’s go for a dance.” He offered his arm and Katherine took it, apprehension growing in her eyes. _So much for not thinking, huh?_

If she was thinking, then he was in trouble. Plenty of folks knew Jack had started working for Sander Cohen after the shootout at the Fisheries. Only he and Katherine knew that they had a little Kelly on the way. And no one, no one but Jack, knew that he had sold out Atlas and his followers to Ryan. No one knew but Jack, but Katherine excelled at figuring things out.

They arrived at the dance floor and he swept her into his arms. “So what is it that’s got you so troubled?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

“Nothin’, sugar,” he lied. “Jus’ the color we wanna paint the baby’s room.”

“Shh!” Katherine glanced around. “Be careful. We agreed to keep it under wraps.”

They had to keep this secret, too, even if it threatened to burst from Jack’s seams. Jack was a father now, and all of Rapture would know about it, if he had his way. But his way wasn’t important—Katherine’s came first. And Katherine feared a family history of miscarriages, so they agreed to keep it to themselves until she was past 10 weeks. She was already around six, they estimated, so just another month before they could shout to the world their good news.

And the world was a safe place to hear it. Jack’s tip to Ryan hadn’t gone unnoticed; a day after Jack sent it, Ryan started rounding up Atlas and all of his followers and sending them to, of all places, Fontaine’s Department Store. Once he finished his purge, Ryan sunk the whole complex into a deep gorge on the ocean floor, sealing the danger away from the rest of the city. Rapture was safe. Baby Kelly-Pulitzer was safe, and Jack could breathe easy.

“Sorry, babe,” said Jack, with one final wink. Katherine rolled her eyes. “I’s excited. You don’t know how excited I is, Ace.”

“I think I do.” She smiled again, and it took all of Jack’s self-control not to press a hand to her unchanged stomach right on the dance floor. “It’s all you talk about when we’re alone.”

“Can’t talk about it with anyone else, can I?”

“Thanks for that.” She touched her forehead to his, closing her eyes. “Thank you for everything, Jack. For everything you’ve done.”

“I love you, too.” _You don’t know everything I’ve done. You don’t know how far I’ve gone for you._

He was pulled from his sweet bubble by shouts of surprise rippling through the crowd. The partiers suddenly surged towards the windows looking into the ocean, and Katherine, always sniffing for a scoop, pulled Jack by the hand to investigate.

“What’s happening? Let us through!” She elbowed through the crowd until they were right up against the windows. Down in the depths below was a dark shape rising from the water, an old building whose neon signs still glowed. Near the roof was one massive neon sign: FONTAINE’S DEPARTMENT STORE.

“Atlas’ army is in there, isn’t it?” said a woman in the crowd. “Is Ryan bringing them back?”

Jack’s heart dropped to his toes. Ryan wouldn’t bring Atlas back. Not after he knew what Atlas was planning.

That meant the only conclusion was that Atlas had found a way to return. If he found out Jack was the one to turn him in, he was as good as dead. And if he still wanted to declare war, Katherine and their baby would get caught in the crossfire.

He grabbed Katherine’s hand, pushed out of the crowd, and bolted for the door. If Atlas was back in Rapture, nowhere was safe for them.

 

**One Year Earlier – The Mid-Atlantic, December 1958**  
Jack was seated firmly in the captain’s chair of the submarine, his hands steady on the rudder and his gaze locked on the ocean ahead. The seat beside him, usually either empty or stocked with contraband cargo, was occupied by Katherine, who was shocked and now clued into his side of the story.

“I can’t believe you,” she whispered. “You spilled the beans? _You_ , after working for Fontaine?”

“Fontaine’s death was a blessing,” he replied sternly, “and a lesson. I ain’t gettin’ either o’ us wrapped up in that no more, ’specially not with Junior on the way.”

She sat in stunned silence. He could feel her gaze on him, the evaluating gaze of an archaeologist as she unearthed a new facet of his personality she had never seen. “And now we’re going to the surface.”

He nodded. “I got an old friend up here. Name’s Medda Larkin. Runs a theater. She’ll help you out.”

Her next words weren’t shocked: they were regretful. “You’re not coming with me.”

He looked over at her. She heaved a sigh and said, “I had figured as much. If Charlie was with us tonight, you would have brought him with us.”

“If I knew where the fuck his new girl lived,” he said, turning back to the ocean ahead, “I woulda found him an’ brought him with us.” He couldn’t leave his brother down there to face the hell Atlas would rain on Rapture. Katherine was on the surface, where neither Ryan nor Atlas could hurt her, and soon he and Charlie would be, too.

Soon enough they breached the surface of the ocean and found themselves off the coast of Manhattan. Jack brought the sub toward the docks, where he’d spent countless nights loading up liquor, Bibles, music, movies, everything Ryan hated that his citizens loved. He climbed out first onto the pier and then lifted Katherine out of the sub. She looked around in wonderment at the ocean and the docks and the city lights beyond, taking big gulps of the briny air. And then it hit him, seeing her glow in the moonlight: this was the first time they had seen each other on the surface. And it was the first time in _years_ she had left Rapture.

But now her gaze, sorrowful and pleading, was locked on him, her grip tight on his arms. “You’ll come back soon, right?” she begged. “If you go back down there and Atlas catches you in his crosshairs, I don’t know what I’d do. I need you to be here for us.”

She grabbed his hand and pressed it to her stomach. “Swear to me that you’ll come back.”

He didn’t hesitate. “I swear,” he said, cradling her cheek with his other hand. Then he pulled her close to him and kissed her, his heart aching and his pulse pounding and his mind storming with determination. “I swear I’ll be back by morning. And then you an’ me an’ Charlie, --and David, too, might as well bring him with us—is gonna find a nice place in the suburbs, an’ you is gonna have that baby, an’ we is gonna live peacefully. It’s gonna be like Rapture never happened.”

Her eyes were wet when she kissed him again, holding him fast. “Be safe,” she whispered. “I’ll be here when you return. I love you, _bärchen_.”

“I love you, too, ace.” He pulled away from her and climbed back into the sub, his heart heavy. Katherine was safe. His child was safe. And, come morning, so would he and the rest of their family. 

They had to be.

 

**Olympus Heights, September 1959**  
“Charlie! David!”

Katherine and Jack had returned to the living room, hands joined and faces dry. Charlie and David had been talking, presumably airing their grievances, and both stood when the couple arrived. Jack continued, “We is headin’ down ta the Fisheries. If there’s a submarine left in Rapture, it’ll be there.”

David and Charlie exchanged a glance. “When’ll ya be ready?”

Katherine’s heart leapt. “Do you mean what I think you mean, Charlie?”

“We know you,” David said with a smirk, returning to the couch. Only now did she notice that their bags were still packed, and that David was halfway through reloading his shotgun when they called them to attention. He picked up the gun, loaded one more round into it, and then snapped the barrel into place. “With the two of you going in there, there was no way you weren’t coming out deciding to stay put.”

Jack squeezed her hand. When she looked at him, he was hiding a smile. “Katherine’s always been unstoppable.”

“Hush.” Katherine held out her hand. Wordlessly, David passed over her revolver. She reloaded her gun, looked up at her family, and said, “I’m not letting Ryan keep me trapped down here while my daughter wonders what happened to her parents.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double upload today!!! Lemme know what you think!


	12. A Tough Spot

**Atlantic Express Railway, September 1959**  
The Railway cars were always empty, but never before had they felt quite so lonely. The train was speeding toward Neptune’s Bounty, carrying a company whose hopes rose despite constantly reminding each other not to get optimistic. But if a functioning submarine was hidden anywhere in Rapture, it was in the Fisheries. This was their greatest chance, and also their last. 

Jack and Charlie sat at the front of the car, smiling of all things. Jack had been under the Hypnotize Plasmid’s spell for two months, long enough for his absence to hurt Charlie’s heart but not so long that the pain dulled into a throbbing ache. The loss was still fresh for him, and the return of his brother just as sweet.

“We’re the lucky ones.” David and Katherine stood in the middle of the car, too anxious to sit. In answer to Katherine’s quizzical look, he said, “Our families are safe and sound topside. Katherine’s parents knew she had moved away, but they didn’t know where—and they must have thought she was heartless for not writing them. But Ryan wouldn’t allow correspondence with the surface, because that might tug on his citizens’ heartstrings and wish they could go home.

Jack and Charlie were another story. They hadn’t had a family to leave behind, but they found one in Rapture. The docks had housed plenty of folks like them, folks who came to Rapture from nothing and were only given more nothing as they were sloughed into menial work. They were frustrated by their lot in life, and that made them easy prey for Fontaine and his Plasmids. How many friends have Jack and Charlie watched die or become a maddened Splicer? Just how many people had they lost?

“You know, if I have my math right, my little brother’s coming up on his twenty-first birthday.” David’s eyes were unsure, reaching for solace from his dear friend. And she was shocked; she had rarely seen Jack angry at her, but rarer still were the moments David opened up. “I came down here, but I missed my little brother growing up.”

He shook his head. “I wanted to be there for his first drink. Make sure his first one isn’t just any beer. Something good, you know?”

Katherine grasped his arm. “We’re not staying stuck here, David, I promise.”

He met her eyes, and then he covered his hand with hers and said, “You know, you can make anything sound believable.”

“Good thing I only report the truth.”

The train jolted to a stop. They got up and marched off with Jack and Charlie into Neptune’s Bounty, the city quarter that was responsible for feeding the rest of Rapture. It was silent and lonely—the most dangerous way for any place in Rapture to be. They lifted their guns and moved forward, and ever so subtly, Jack slipped his hand into hers.

The district was just as terrifying as it was barren. The glassy corridors to the run-down fronts of the factories were empty except for them, every wet footstep and every creak of the floorboards echoing in the vacuum. Just where was everyone, and why weren’t they _here_?

And then she heard a voice say, “Katherine Pulitzer, as I live an’ breathe.”

The group froze as a short young man limped out from around the corner, a scar on his jaw and a revolver in his hand. He had the swagger of Andrew Ryan and the muscles of Adonis himself. Katherine beamed. “Hello again, Spot! It’s good to see you.”

“Haven’t seen ya in forever, an’ that was before New Years’.” His gaze traveled to her companions, and Katherine felt their eyes on her in puzzlement. “An’ I haven’t seen the Kelly boys for a while, either.”

“She picked us up along the way,” said Jack, his jaw just a little stiffer than usual. “Didn’t know you two knew each other.”

“It’s nice to see a friendly face ’round these parts,” said Charlie, sensing the brewing storm. “Our last place got bombed out. We were thinkin’ about shackin’ up in the old hideout.”

Spot’s smile dimmed and twisted up into a frown. “The smuggler’s hideout ain’t the friendliest of places no more.”

“Is any place left in Rapture friendly?” David said dryly.

“I’m just sayin’ that it might not be the smartest place to try an’ clear out. Overrun by Splicers now. Even Wilkins is scared to death o’ the place.”

“Well, we need to get in,” Jack said sharply. “We don’t got no other option.”

Spot's frown deepened. “I’m tellin’ ya, you ain’t gonna survive. Peach can’t get enough folks together to go in an’ try an’ clean it out. I can find spots fo’ all o’ ya at the Fightin’ McDonagh’s. That’s where he set up camp. Y’know, he loves bein’ head honcho now, but he ain’t good at it.”

“We think our chances are pretty good.” Katherine squeezed Jack’s hand, and she sensed that he was grateful for the reassurance. “Sorry, Spot. We won’t be swayed.”

His brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed, sweeping them all with a calculating gaze. “No one’s been in that place for months. What’s so special about it that you is willin’ to risk ya life for it?”

“Nothin’,” Jack said harshly. “It was nice seein’ ya, but we’s gonna get goin’.” he tugged on Katherine’s hand, but she remained firmly rooted in place. She knew Spot was clever, and she knew Jack was a horrible liar.

“It’s good to see you alive. Friends are few around here now,” she said with a smile. “I’m glad you made it.”

“I made it by stayin’ outta places like the hideout.” He stared at them for a long moment, but then nodded slowly, a steely glint in his eye. You be careful in there.”

“We will.”

“See ya ’round,” said Charlie as the group walked past him. “Nice catchin’ up.”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “Sure was.”

They left Spot and trooped further into Neptune’s Bounty. Jack’s hand was tight on hers, and his jaw was still clenched after the encounter, even as they dug further and further into the district. Their travels were district unfazed by trouble—no Splicers, no sane refugees looking for resources, not a soul.

“Hey,” she whispered, tugging him to the side as David and Charlie plowed ahead. “Are you okay?”

“ ’M fine,” Jack said, not looking at her. “Don’t worry ’bout me.”

“Try and stop me.” Her hands ran up along his arms and shoulders until she was cradling his face. “Spot and I had a fling, and it didn’t last.”

“He was there when ya came t’ the fisheries.” Now he looked at her with a hard gaze and a quivering lip. “He acted like he didn’t know ya.”

“What? Oh!” The second time they met was when she was caught snooping at Fontaine’s Fisheries. Spot had been one of the men to hold her hostage. “He acted like that because I _told_ him to. The whole idea was that the boyfriend I was visiting wasn’t there, and then I’d have a tantrum because I would think he was cheating—theatrical, sure, but it would distract Fontaine long enough to get me out of there unscathed.”

She let out a soft sigh. “And then you were there. You said you were my boyfriend, and I found I quite liked it.”

His lips crashed to hers suddenly, his arm wrapping tight around her waist. She let out a surprised squeak—he _rarely_ got like this, even before she left! And this? This was the first time they had shared a kiss after they met again. Fuck, she’d missed his kisses.

They pulled apart slowly. Jack breathed, “I shoulda done that the second I saw ya.”

She smiled at him. “I’m glad we got around to it now.”

“Hey!” David called from up ahead. “Save it for when we’re topside, will ya?”

Katherine blushed. Jack took her hand and started walking again. “Take it easy, Peepin’ Tom.”

After a great, long, unsettlingly easy journey, they reached the entrance of Fontaine’s Fisheries, a hulking, run-down storefront that housed evil. “Get ready,” said Jack to the others, checking the almost-full ammunition clip of his tommy gun. “We’s gonna get hit pretty hard in there.”

Jack reloaded his tommy gun, looked at them all, and nodded. Then he reared back and kicked open the door to the fisheries, signaling the arrival of visitors to the hell that waited inside.


	13. Facing the Tide

**Smuggler’s Hideout, September 1959**  
Through the damp, rocky halls they crept, their hands clamping down on their weapons every time a drop of water hit the ground. They had proceeded through the fisheries, all rotted wood and musty, damp air, and proceeded into the hideout it shielded, a stronghold built deep into the bedrock of the ocean. Few Splicers had accosted them on their way through Fontaine’s Fisheries, which meant they were all hiding here in the hideout. Here, right beside their only chance of escape.

“What if we just run an’ gun it?” whispered Charlie. “I don’t wanna stay here one more second if we gots a way out.”

“We have to be careful,” David hissed. “Let’s get as close to the sub as we can before our Hail Mary. I want us to have a chance.”

“Our Hail Mary begins as soon as we fire the first shot,” said Katherine. “They’ll come running as soon as they know there’s a viper in the nest.”

The corridor they were in opened up to a hub stacked with looted crates and discarded contraband. Film reels and empty liquor bottles littered the ground, but Katherine spotted something among the rubble she hadn’t seen down here in years: a Torah. It sat in a puddle beside a ransacked crate among Bibles and Qurans, all illegal in the city of Rapture and all fair game for a smuggler. She went over to it and picked it up; the pages were stuck together and the cover was all but destroyed after sitting in its puddle, but with a little care and patience, she could read it once again. She had come to Rapture eschewing the idea of religion, even one as complex and interwoven with heritage as Judaism; she had never liked the idea of anyone setting her course in life but herself. 

But old habits die hard. The citizens of atheist Rapture longed for the philosophies they were raised with. As illogical and hypocritical as those philosophies may be, they provided comfort, and Katherine found herself soothed by the familiar Hebrew passages for the first time in a very long while. They felt like a hug from her father and sounded like the pop of latkes in the pan.

She carefully packed the Torah into her bag. _Sit tight, June. I’m going to be there when you try your first latke._

“You’re new here,” a voice said from behind them. Katherine shot to her feet and spun around with her friends as the snarling came closer and closer, until a young woman limped into sight. She wore a navy blue dress, filthy with the grime of the wharf. Her eyes were desperate and quickly filling with hope.

“I need your help,” she begged, limping towards them. “I used to be—not myself, like everyone else. Crazy for ADAM. I-I just need your help."

“What is it?” Charlie asked immediately. “The way out’s clear. You can get outta here just fine.”

“I can?” Her face brightened, and a gunshot rang out. 

Blood spurted from her neck, and she screamed, fell, and died, writhing in agony as her killer walked out of the shadows of the corridor they’d just come from.

Spot Conlon stood before them, his jaw tight. “I’m sorry, Katherine.”

Katherine’s blood ran cold. “What have you done?”

Suddenly the undersea network of caves was filled with the sound of shrieks and maddened war cries, of metal scraping against metal, and of footsteps all thundering towards the hub.

“Spot, what the fuck is wrong with ya?” roared Jack. “She was sane! She coulda escaped!”

“Wilkins was eyein’ up the hideout as his new camp,” he said, his voice almost wistful. “All he needed someone brave enough t’ try an’ clear out the Splicers. You wasn’t ever gonna make it outta this place, but as long as the Splicers are in one place while they tear ya apart, ya woulda been useful. With ’em workin’ on you, Wilkins’ men can come in an’ cut ’em down all at once.”

“We’ll be caught in the crossfire!” spat David.

Jack suddenly surged past him, grabbing Spot and pinning him to the rocky wall. “This was my only chance to see my daughter, ya slime! Ya think we was scopin’ out a picnic spot down here?”

“Ya daughter?” Spot repeated, puzzled.

“That was where I was, Spot.” She cocked her revolver. “Jack got me out of this hellscape so I could give birth to a baby girl.”

Katherine was calm to the point of coldness. She watched as the fear in Spot’s eyes blossomed as she moved closer and closer. “Jack,” she said, “I need you to step away.”

Jack eyed the gun she held at her side and then looked back up at Spot. He let go of him and backed away, eyes on Katherine. And she didn’t care what look he gave her, revulsion or fear or admiration, even. The cries of the approaching Splicers grew louder by the second, and now they could hear the methodical, chilling loading of ammunition into guns.

Katherine’s arm lifted of its own accord. Her hand didn’t shake as she aimed her revolver and pulled the trigger.

Her bullet blasted clean through Spot’s knee. He screamed and dropped to the ground, face contorting in pain. Said Katherine, “The Splicers will pick over you first. Thanks for buying us time.”

The men around her were stunned, but she grabbed Jack’s arm and turned on her heel, hurrying down the passage. “There better be a sub down there.”

They bolted down the tunnel, the sounds of chaos and war following closely behind them, until suddenly they were running along wooden planks instead of a rocky floor. Soon the tunnel opened up into a wide cavern flooded with ocean water. A network of piers and docks connected one end of the cavern to the other, the water lapping at the edges. Katherine could tell that this used to be the real trade port of Rapture, the docks framing wide areas of empty ocean where a submersible might once have bobbed. In the first spot was an old submarine, keeling to the side with a torn-open hull. But all the way at the very end of the cavern—

“A sub!” Jack exclaimed as they all ran across the docks towards it. It bobbed, intact, peacefully, waiting for a captain and crew to take charge. “Sit tight. I’s gonna climb in an’ make sure everythin’s runnin’ all right.”

“Be quick.” Charlie watched as Jack climbed up the submarine and wrenched open the rusty hatch. David had wandered to a crate of contraband, sifting through the contents until he gave a cheer.

“Hey, fellas!” He held up a hypodermic needle filled with a blue liquid. David’s eyes shone brightly. “We got EVE!”

"Gimme that," said Charlie, walking to David's side and fishing in the crate. "Let's bring 'em up with us. The less EVE down here, the better."

The screams and thunderous footsteps drew closer. Jack!” Katherine called up. “How are we looking?”

Jack’s head poked up out of the hatch. “It ain’t good.”

“Is it functional?”

“Yeah, but she’s gonna need some time t’ get goin’.” He climbed back down to them, dejected. “Th’ Splicers’ll get here before we get outta here. We should get home, regroup, plan our attack better next time.”

“We’re not gonna have a next time.” Charlie’s eyes were hard with anger. “Wilkins’ men is comin’. They’s gonna find out there’s a workin’ sub, and we is never gonna see it again.”

Silence fell. Their one chance to get out was here, but how could they survive the two armies that were competing for the same chance.

Charlie extended his hand to Jack. “Gimme ya gun.”

“Charlie, no,” Jack said sternly, pulling the gun out of his brother’s reach. “Don’t even think about it.”

“It’ll be better for crowd control than mine,” he fired back. “We both know ya would sacrifice yaself if it came down to it, but we need ya in that sub if any o’ us want any hope o’ reachin’ the surface. Ya deserve ta meet my niece, Jack. I hear she’s a real swell gal.”

Katherine knew this standoff could last until the end of time, and that they couldn’t afford inaction. “Jack, get in the sub. Charlie, watch his back.” She rolled her shoulders. “I’ll hold them off.”

Jack turned white, anger and helplessness warring on his face. Only Charlie managed to find his words. “Kath’rine, no. June needs ya.”

“She can survive with Jack,” she said shortly. “I already escaped once, Charlie. I’m not robbing you of the chance again.”

Charlie’s face softened, but resistance on another front had finally found its footing. “Get in the fuckin’ sub, Katherine,” snapped Jack. “We ain’t doin’ this. I ain’t leavin’ Rapture without ya!”

“You won’t.” David stepped up beside her on the docks and pumped his shotgun. Katherine felt a sudden rush of affection for her dear friend, who nodded solemnly at her and said, “I’m not letting you face the tide alone.” 

“I ain’t allowin’ this!” Jack roared. “Either we is all in, or we get out an’ try again t’morrow.”

“We don’t have a choice.” She grabbed Jack by the front of his shirt, yanked him towards her, and kissed him. She let herself enjoy it for just one second, just one second, and then her hand closed on his machine gun and she pulled away. “I’m sorry, _bärchen._ ”

She had expected him to be outraged, or at least irritated that she had gotten one over on him; but he had a peculiar look on his face when he realized what happened, a wry realization that he should have seen this coming.

The shrieks began to bounce out of the tunnel and all around the cavern they were in. The army of Splicers was closing in, and their time was running out. Katherine swallowed hard. “Get in that sub. I love you, Jack.”

“I—”

“Don’t say it.” Katherine’s voice was hard. “Don’t say it until we’re out of here.”

Jack glared at her, but then his face softened. “Then I’ll see ya in a few.” He glanced at David. Both men nodded, and then Jack and Charlie marched off to the sub, climbing in and disappearing. Katherine looked back at David, overwhelmed with gratitude for her dear friend. If she was cut down now, she was glad it was by her friend’s side, protecting the man she loved.

“You’ve always been a great friend, Davey. _Tizkeh lemitzvot_.”

The thundering of the approaching wave of Splicers had reached an earsplitting volume. David smiled. “ _Tizki lemitzvot_. I’ll make sure you get back to your baby, even if it kills me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double upload next time for the finale! Lemme know what you think!


	14. What It Cost

**Smuggler’s Hideout, September 1959**  
The army of Splicers washed in like a typhoon. The wood under their feet creaked and groaned as they flooded in. Spider Splicers took to the cavern walls, climbing up to seek a vantage point.

Katherine curled her finger around the trigger of her gun and said, “Don’t get in the way of my fire.”

David pumped his shotgun. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They exchanged a glance and nodded. Katherine pulled the trigger.

The spray of bullets leveled the first wave of Splicers and tripped up the second. They yelped pitifully, humanly as she cut them down, their corpses forming a fortress for their comrades to scale. The more eager they were to kill the invaders, the faster they died, and the quicker they built a protective wall for their prey.

Maybe they could do this. Maybe they could survive.

 

**The Submarine, September 1959**  
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon!”

Jack was yanking on the lever that controlled the rudder, but he couldn’t get it to give an inch. The lever seemed to be fine, which meant the rudder on the vessel’s stern must be rused in place. “Chuck, I needja t’ check out the rudder,” he ordered over his shoulder. “I can’t get it to move. See whatcha can do.”

“On it!”

Charlie began to climb back towards the hatch. At the foot of the ladder were the doses of EVE David had found, stowed safely away from the Splicers. Jack looked back through the window before him at the battle at the docks; Splicers toppled into the water as Katherine and David cut them down, but the Splicers were like a Hydra. Cut one down, and two more appeared in its place. 

And they had become these monsters, these savage creatures that killed with abandon and would easily kill them all, all a because of EVE.

Jack grit his teeth. “You should take some o’ the EVE,” he called to his brother. “Those Spiders could slip past Kath and David. Ya gotta protect yaself.

Charlie scowled, but then bent down, picked up a dosage, and expertly injected himself with it. “I’ll leave the last one fo’ you. Now lemme see about that rudder.”  
He scrambled up the ladder and disappeared out of the hatch. Jack turned back to his work, knowing Katherine wouldn’t last long out there. Even if she somehow beat back the Splicer horde, she’d never survive Wilkins’ army right behind them. They had to get out of here, and fast.

Jack worked and worked and worked until his hands were streaked with grease and covered in paint chips, until he was coughing up dust and rust, until the engine purred beneath his feet and the lights on the bridge blinked to life. He let out a whoop of joy. Their little submarine was ready to depart! 

He climbed out of the sub to see the headway Charlie made on the rudder, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the scene on the docks. The well of Splicers seemed to have dried up—no more were pouring in from the tunnel—but the remaining ones had crowded around Katherine and David, pressing in on them from all sides. They were heaving themselves up onto the docks to help their fellows, when—

“David!” he screamed. “Look out!”

He watched, horrified, as a Splicer shot up from under the water and latched onto David’s leg with a bony hand. David screamed and fell to the docks, kicking in a vain attempt to dislodge his assailant as she dragged him towards the edge of the pier. Katherine whirled around just in time for her to watch as the Splicer, with one almighty yank on his ankle, dragged him off and into the water.

 

**Smuggler’s Hideout, September 1959**  
“Davey!” Katherine screamed, falling to her knees and catching his hand. The Splicer growled and did her best to drag David underwater, but Katherine held fast. She was fumbling for a weapon, the machine gun that had run out of ammunition or the revolver that had buried itself somewhere within the folds of her coat, something that could save him as he thrashed in the water like a cornered animal, wild and brutal and just not enough.

The Splicer snarled up at the pier, which was now loaded with her comrades. A Spider Splicer, her hook hands gleaming, leaped in to aid her friend. As she made a splash landing, the point of her left hook sank into David’s chest.

Katherine screamed until she tasted copper in the back of her throat, the taste of blood, and gasped for breath. “ _Davey, no!_ ”

Agony contorted David’s face as he writhed in the red-tinged water as Katherine continued her fight to pull him back on the pier, even as the Splicer army threatened to crush them. She couldn’t let him die here when they were so close to escape! They were so _fucking_ close to seeing their families again, to feeling the sun on their skin, to having that drink on his little brother’s twenty-first birthday. David deserved that! He deserved to live!

The Spider Splicer in the water tugged hard on David, causing him to cry out again, and nearly yanking Katherine into the water with them. That was when their eyes met, through the snarling of the Splicers and the splashing in the water, and when Katherine saw how his eyes had hardened. That was when she saw his determination to enact a fate he would not be present to see.

“Mayer and Esther Jacobs. Manhattan, New York.” He squeezed her hand, blood pouring from his lips. “Find them for me.”

He let go of her and let the Splicers pull him beneath the surface.

“No!” Katherine lurched toward him, willing, in that moment, to follow him into the murky, briny depths, but an invisible force stalled her and then yanked her backwards, through the air and above the remains of the battle. She collided hard with a familiar chest and then a pair of arms wrapped around her securely, an empty EVE hypo clattering to the surface of the submarine.

“Get ready,” Jack said to his brother. Only when his breath moved past her cheek did she realize her face was wet.

Jack unraveled one arm and reached out again. He clenched his hand into a fist and then yanked it downward; at the same time, the wooden docks buckled and shattered under the feet of the Splicers and sent them into the water. They screeched and scrambled for the tunnel entrance, drowning each other in their own hurry to survive.

Jack barked, “Now!”

Charlie outstretched both hands and, with a savage cry, let loose a torrent of blue lightning into the water. At once the Splicers thrashed in the watery trap, caught in a devastating electric storm, letting out the most agonizing screams Katherine had ever heard from creatures like them. She cried out with them, struggling against Jack to free her so she might dive in for David, get him out, get him in the sub and then get him into a hospital. But it became abundantly clear as the Splicers disappeared one by one beneath the surface of the water that David had met the same fate.

She sobbed as Jack brought her and Charlie into the belly of the submarine, shut the hatch, and went to the bridge. They submerged right as she glimpsed another mob of fighters appearing at the tunnel entrance, surprised by the bloodshed.

Katherine, Jack, and Charlie had escaped. They sailed away from the blood and the bedlam, exhausted and bereaved, but alive. 

She sat against the ladder and wept, her grief lacerating her from the inside out, as they slipped silently through the ocean. This didn’t feel like living. It didn’t feel like she made it, even if David had given his life so that hers wouldn’t end. Yes, she knew that was why he did it. He knew that if she held on any longer, they would both  
die. He knew he chose to save her life so she could return to her daughter. But he had deserved to meet his niece just as much!

After a long while, Jack appeared and knelt before her, having given control of their vessel to Charlie for a few minutes. His eyes were somber, and his mouth opened and closed as he tried to form words, but none came out. So she supplied her own.

“Why didn’t you save him?” she whispered. “We could have stopped that.”

Jack’s face was grim. “We couldn’t, ace. I woulda brought his body with us if I coulda seen it in the water.”

“His family,” she choked out. “He wanted to see his family, and now they won’t even get to bury him.” Her eyes widened suddenly and she reached into her pockets, pulling out the bulky Torah.

Jack sucked in a breath. “Ace, I dunno—”

“I have to.” She looked back up at him. “It’s the best he’ll ever get.”

Jack swallowed and nodded. Katherine closed her eyes, held the Torah to her chest, and reached deep into the recesses of her memory of the words she once recited daily, of the first prayer she ever learned: the Mourner’s Kaddish.

“ _Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba._  
B'alma di v'ra chirutei,  
v'yamlich malchutei,  
b'chayeichon uv'yomeichon  
uv'chayei d'chol beit Yisrael,  
baagala uviz'man kariv. V'im'ru: Amen.”

David would have no other burial. This would have to do. It was robbed of ceremony, of honor, of the proper devotion he deserved, but perhaps this might ease his spirit. 

When she opened her eyes, Jack was sitting beside her, and he reached out to wrap his arm around her shoulders. She clung to him, desperate for his strength when she had none left. She curled into a ball on the deck of the sub, the Torah clutched tight in her arms. “You’re the best friend I ever had, Davey. _Tizkeh lemitzvot_.”


	15. A Miracle Too Many

**Long Island, New York, September 1959**  
Katie Pulitzer was overjoyed when she answered the door to her daughter.

“Kitty!” The five-foot-ten redhead embraced Katherine tightly, tears cascading down her cheeks. Katie Pulitzer had been through so much: first the disappearance of her daughter and then the death of her husband, only for Katherine to return, stay less than a year, and vanish again. But in that time, she’d woven a tale of underwater cities and fantastical science and corruption that of course she would fight, of course she couldn’t let it fester. Katherine could never stand for that, just like her father.

“We made it back, Mother,” Katherine said, getting choked up herself. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

“Of course not, of course not.” Katie pulled away, her round cheeks red and her eyes shining. Only then did she look up at the other two people Katherine had brought to her door. Perhaps she would be irritated later for it, but in this moment, she was grateful her daughter had brought back more people to fill this big, empty house.

“Is one of you Jack?” she asked carefully, looking at Katherine to gauge her reaction.

Jack swallowed and stepped forward. “Evenin’, ma’am. My name’s Jack Kelly.” He extended his hand, but Katie pulled him into her arms.

“You’re family now, Jack,” she said. “I’m Katherine’s mother, but you can call me Katie. Don’t call me Mrs. Pulitzer under any circumstances, please. That’s for strangers, and I insist we not treat each other like strangers.”

“Sure thing, Missus—Katie,” he said with a bashful smile.

She loosened her grip on Jack and looked at the other young man with blond hair. “And what’s your name, sir?”

“Charlie. I’m Jack’s brother.” He nodded, and almost seemed a little intimidated. Katherine herself was a force of nature, but she didn’t hold a candle to her mother. “Nice ta meet ya.”

“Welcome, Charlie! Welcome, all of you! A celebration is in order, I think! Don’t you?” Katie Pulitzer was suddenly ten years younger, with a big smile and bright eyes. “I’ll tell the cook that she’s got to scramble, and we’ll have to get the guest room prepared—”

“Mrs. Pulitzer, please,” Jack interrupted. “Thank ya for this. I’m sorry, but there’s somethin’ I gotta do.”

Katie’s face changed suddenly; she was still happy, but it was a heavy sort of happiness, devoid of thrill and loaded with understanding and honor. “Of course. She’s down for her nap right now.”

Katherine slipped her hand into Jack’s. “This way.”

Jack marveled at the spacious home as she guided him through the corridors. “I didn’t know houses could ever be so big,” he murmured. “Even in Long Island.”

“My father liked to enjoy his wealth,” she said. “Still, I’m sure a family of seven children put a serious dent in it.”

She brought him to her bedroom. It was dark inside, but the afternoon light that fell through the curtains was enough to reveal a bassinet in the corner of the room. The bassinet held a lump covered in a tiny pink blanket.

Jack sucked in a breath. He let go of Katherine’s hand and went towards the crib, his footfalls soft on the plush carpet, and drew up to the side. He reached in, pulled back the edge of the blanket, and found the chubby, redheaded baby girl he and Katherine had fought tooth and nail to see.

He choked back tears as he reached in and lifted June into his arms. Her tiny nose wrinkled as she stirred and opened her big blue eyes to stare at Jack. Those big eyes filled with tears as they fell on a face she had never seen before, and she let out a piercing wail that shattered the air in the room.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Jack crooned as Katherine rushed up to his side again. He tucked June’s head into his shoulder and started to sway, running a hand gently down her back. Tears were running down his face, too, but he was smiling brighter than the afternoon sun. His muscles were relaxed, his heart calm.

Katherine was right. June’s cry was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

 

**Manhattan, New York, September 1959**  
A Jewish funeral tends to be brief: some psalms, a eulogy or _hesped_ , and the El Moley Rachamim, the traditional closing prayer.

The mourners perform _kriah_ before the funeral, in which they make a tear in their clothing as a symbolic release of their pent-up grief. Then after the deceased has been buried, the family sits _shiva_ , a seven-day mourning period where they cover the mirrors and sit near the ground as they receive visitors and hear condolences.

Katherine had robbed the Jacobs family of it all.

She walked into the pub and spotted Les right away, hunched over on a stool at the bar. She met only a few days ago when she at last found the Jacobs home. There, after she introduced herself as a friend of David’s, they had comfortably situated her on a soft couch and made her tea, desperate to hear her story. And she had had to look into their warm, kind eyes as she spelled out their oldest son’s destruction.

David’s father was stoic and David’s mother was beside herself, but David’s little brother, like many young people who have been through too much in their short life, was angry. He stewed on it and boiled in it until it exploded out of his mouth, levying her with declarations of guilt.

And was he wrong?

Katherine drew up next to Les at the bar and placed order for brandy. He was drinking a cheap beer; even in shock and anger, he was keeping kosher. She herself had abandoned kosher the moment she arrived in Rapture—her heritage was considered contraband.

“Mister Jacobs,” she began, “I’ve come to ask you something.”

“Don’t bother.” He turned to her, and she noticed his eyes had dark circles under them. What had her mother been through after her father had passed? After Katherine’s own disappearance? “You’re not taking anything of Davey’s.”

Her heart broke yet again. “I wasn’t going to ask for anything of his,” she said softly, but Les had found a path he wanted to rush headlong down.

“You _saw_ him. We didn’t know for years where he had gone, and suddenly you turn up out of the blue and say he’s been alive all this time, and he was so close to seeing us, and he died for nothing?”

“That’s not true!” David’s death had been ugly and shocking and brutal, but it hadn’t been in vain. “I told you what happened. He died to reunite me with my daughter.”

Les’ eyes were hard, and he stared at Katherine unblinkingly as he took another long swig of beer and then said, “Yeah. Nothing.”

Her brandy arrived. Katherine drank it to disguise her own grief. She was nothing to the Jacobses, just a stranger with a fantastical story who offered them hope and ripped it away in the same sentence. To them, she may as well have killed David herself.

“If I could have brought him back to you, I would have,” she said. “So you could at least bury him. But I did my best in the time we had—I found a Torah, I recited the Kaddish. It was the best I could do.”

Les was stone-faced. Katherine knew the feeling of loss, of that gaping, steel-edged hole in your chest where your heart used to be. Her sister had died when they were both teenagers, younger than Les. But she was there for every second of Lucy’s gritty fight; she was there from her diagnosis of cancer to the bitter end. She didn’t know how to have a part of her life ripped away with no answers, no closure, and no hope for peace.

“You know,” Les began, staring hard at the label of his bottle, “when you left the other night, Ma said she was happy. We finally figured out where he was, she said. We knew he died noble. David, you know, for all his pomp and circumstance, everything he did had a point.”

Katherine carefully reached out, set a hand on Les’ shoulder, and squeezed. He looked at her again, but his eyes were soft and vulnerable. Anger was a part of grief, but shocked anger tended to evaporate quickly. It was explosive, yes, but too exhausting to maintain for a long time, so it spilled out in bursts until all that was left was a tired mourner.

“What I was going to ask you,” she said, “was if you would let me perform _kriah_.”

Les’ wet eyes widened. She continued, “I know there is plenty I can never give to you. I even have to warn you against any kind of memorial service, because the man who built that city is vengeful and cruel, and I fear what would happen if he somehow heard you knew his secret.”

“How would he know?” Les asked, bewildered.

Her stomach churned, and her skin crawled with icy-footed spiders. “He has ways. Underestimating him could very well spell your death.” But Andrew Ryan wasn’t here in this bar today. They could have this hour in his bar free of worry.

“A memorial would only fuel questions and bring trouble you don’t deserve. I still want to observe and honor David’s loss, but performing _kriah_ would not feel right without the permission of the family.”

Les turned back to his bottle, his lip quivering. She could see his heartbreak wash over him, a reckoning tide that the best friendships prepared you least for. Even though his family hadn’t seen him for years, she had refreshed the pain of loss as if it was just yesterday. She had widened a wound they were working hard to numb.

Les choked back a sob, wiped his eyes, and stood. “We have to stand to say the blessing.”

“That’s right.” She climbed to her feet and quietly whispered to the bartender to fetch them a pair of scissors. When they arrived, Katherine grasped the right lapel of her coat and saw Les finger his left one. Traditionally, only parents made the tear on the left side—since it was over the heart, it signaled great loss. Those who tore upon their left that weren’t parents did it to signal especially debilitating grief.

Katherine took the scissors in hand. “We say the blessing first, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Les closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and together they said: 

“ _Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha’olam dayan ha’emet_.”

Katherine reached over and snipped Les’ lapel, and then they swapped the scissors and Les did the same for her. And then suddenly, as Les closed his eyes and let out a sigh, a heavy burden was lifted from her shoulders, and the emptiness Katherine had felt was filled. Her heart was back in place.

She took out a handkerchief and offered it to Les. He shook his head, preferring his sleeve, and said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you for allowing me the privilege.” She dried her face and they sat down again. Les was considerably warmer towards her now, his body angled towards her and his face more open, less guarded. “If you like,” she offered, “I could tell you more about David’s life. I have plenty of stories I think he would want you to hear.”

“I’d like that,” said Les. His smile was heavy, but a smile at all was a change for the better. “Not today, but soon.”

“Whenever you want.” Katherine took her brandy and held it up. “To David.”

Les clinked his glass against hers. “To David.”

 

**Long Island, New York, September 1959**  
When Katherine returned home that evening, Charlie and her mother were in the parlor with a pair of deliverymen, who were helping Charlie ease into a brand-new wheelchair. He dropped in with a happy sigh and said, “Thank ya so much, Missus Pulitzer. Y’know, soon as I find a job—”

“How many times must I tell you to call me Katie?” She signed off on the receipt and the deliverymen took their leave. Katie said, “This is a gift from me, Charlie, and a necessity to you.”

“It’s such a big gift,” he said, running his hands over the rails on the wheels. “I can’t accept it like it’s nothing.”

She pursed her lips. “Well, in that case, you can take it as a reward.”

Charlie was puzzled. “Fo’ what?”

“For bringing my daughter home.”

Katherine ducked away and hurried upstairs, heading for the bedroom she had spent her childhood in, the bedroom that her baby would spend her infancy in. It had occurred to her that one day it might just be her and Jack and June after they move out, but she couldn’t foresee anyone in the home being ready to move out. Her mother had been through so much, just as they had.

She reached her bedroom and opened the door. Jack stood over the crib with June in his arms, humming softly. June was already sound asleep.

“Welcome home,” Jack whispered as he lay her down. “How’d it go?”

She fingered the tear in the coat of her lapel. “As well as I could have hoped.”

“I’m glad.”

She took off her coat and tossed it onto the bed, and then drew up to Jack’s side and embraced him. His arms snaked around her, one hand cradling the back of her head as she lingered. Jack was here. Jack was strong.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” she whispered, “but I can’t help but think…think that…”

Now it was his turn to sigh. She felt the rise and fall of his chest, the heaviness of his heart. “You’re wonderin’ if it was worth it.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I thought I could get everyone out with me, I really did. And of course I’m thrilled and thankful that I got you and Charlie out, but it’s not everyone.”

“It’s okay. I’ve been wonderin’ the same thing.” She took comfort knowing Jack wrestled with this demon, too. They survived Rapture, and for what? To be ungrateful?

Jack’s hold on her tightened. “But I was always wonderin’ about that while we were down in the city. Folks got picked off left an’ right, and I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about if there was ever a point to survivin’ if not everyone survived with us. But, y’know, whenever I start wonderin’ like that now, I look at June.” 

They both looked down at her, sleeping peacefully and unknowingly in her parents’ torment. He continued, “I survived down there on the hope that I might see her. I thought it was just a shard of denial that got me up in the morning, but now I think it was my gut sayin’ that you was comin’ back for me.”

She felt his hand under her chin, tilting her face up to meet his eyes. “I really got to know David while you was gone. An’ what my gut’s tellin’ me now is that maybe this was how it was always gonna be, an' he would be okay with that.”

As a rule, Katherine didn’t believe in fate. She didn’t believe in cosmic forces that governed lives. “It didn’t have to be this way. We could have saved him.”

His face was grim. “I dunno, ace. Rapture has always cost the folks who lived there. Movin’ down cost us our family. Gettin’ you out cost me the chance to save other folks. Believe me, if I coulda saved him, I would, but that city took as much as it gave.”

She buried her face in his shoulder. Maybe there was something to his words. Rapture required sacrifice to sustain itself, but even with all its citizens gave, it still became a hellish battlefield that, frankly, it was a miracle that Jack had survived as long as he did in. It was a miracle, too, that she had gotten Jack out with Charlie and herself. Maybe asking to spare David was one miracle too many.

She sighed and pulled away from him. “Today’s been a long day. I think I might skip dinner and lay down.”

“Ya mind if I join ya?” he asked as she kicked off her shoes and climbed fully-clothed under the blankets.

“Sure.” The thought crossed her mind of just how long it had been since they had last been intimate, but considering the events of the last week on top of her body’s continuing recuperation from childbirth, she decided to shelve that question for another day.

Jack slid in beside her, draping an arm around her middle. She craned her neck to face him and said, “I love you, _bärchen_. I love you so much.”

“I know, ace. I love you, too.” He kissed her, his arm yet again tightening on her while her hand skated up it to his shoulder. They parted slowly, and he said, “I ain’t   
sure I ever thanked ya for rescuin’ me. I don’t think I coulda ever made it out on my own without you.”

If she hadn’t returned to Rapture, maybe David would still be alive. But June would have also grown up only with stories of a father who would love her with all his heart, if only it still beat.

“I’d do it again and again for you,” she said solemnly.

Jack’s eyes were weary. His smile was soft. “I know you would.”

He kissed her one last time and then they lay down together, each keeping a watchful eye on June’s crib. But sleep caught them faster nowadays, now that they were in a soft bed in a safe place, and soon they were both pulled under by the peace they fought hard for, their daughter just a few steps away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for joining me on this crazy crossover journey! Lemme know what you think on my Tumblr!


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